LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Class 


THE 

STORY   OF   OUR   CONTINENT 

A  Reader  in  the  Geography  and  Geology 
of  North  America 

FOR    THE    USE    OF   SCHOOLS 


BY 


N.    S.    SHALER 

PROFESSOR  OF  GEOLOGY  IN  HARVARD  COLLEGE 


BOSTON,   U.S.A. 
PUBLISHED    BY  GINN    &   COMPANY 

1904 


mi 


COPYRIGHT,  1891, 
BY  N.  S.  SHALER. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


TYPOGRAPHY  .BY  J.  S.  GUSHING  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 
PRESSWORK  BY  GINN  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE. 


THOSE  who  read  this  book  will  at  once  perceive  that 
both  in  the  subject-matter  and  arrangement  it  departs 
widely  from  the  ordinary  text-books  which  give  an 
account  of  North  America.  It  should  be  understood 
that  the  end  which  the  writer  sought  to  attain  is  not 
that  which  may  be  secured  by  the  ordinary  school 
geographies.  Such  works  undertake  to  afford  the 
student  a  large  body  of  detailed  information  concerning 
the  existing  state  of  the  country,  and  with  little  or  no 
reference  to  the  steps  by  which  the  land  came  to  its 
present  estate.  The  aim  of  this  work  has  been  to  pre 
sent  only  those  features  which  can  be  shown  in  their 
relation  to  the  geological  development  of  the  continent. 

The  expectation  of  the  author  has  been  that  this  work 
will  be  used  as  a  reader  along  with  some  geography 
which  treats  in  a  thorough  way  the  facts  of  a  political 
and  economic  nature,  such  as  these  text-books  ordi 
narily  present.  Used  in  this  manner,  it  will  naturally 
lead  the  student  to  perceive  how  the  present  state  of 
the  country  is  due  to  the  processes  which  have  gone 
on  in  the  remote  past,  and  in  this  way  to  attain  to 
some  of  the  most  enlarging  conceptions  which  the 
geological  history  of  the  earth  unfolds. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE 

GEOGRAPHY  OF  NORTH  AMERICA  i 


CHAFFER   II. 
THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA          .  18 

CHAPTER   III. 
THE  PRESENT  CONDITIONS  OF  NORTH  AMERICA  76 

CHAPTER   IV. 
THE  ABORIGINAL  PEOPLES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA     .        .        .        .153 

CHAPTER   V. 
NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA      .        .166 

CHAPTER  VI. 

EFFECT  OF  THE  FORM  OF  NORTH  AMERICA  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF 
THE  COLONISTS  FROM  EUROPE  AND  THEIR  DESCENDANTS  .        .    233 

CHAPTER   VII. 
THE  COMMERCIAL  CONDITION  OF  NORTH  AMERICA         .        .        .    246 


TH£  V 


THE  STORY  OF  OUR  CONTINENT. 

CHAPTER    I. 

GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Method  of  study.  Cause  and  effect  of  climate.  Influence  of  geographic 
conditions  on  animals  and  plants;  on  the  life  of  man.  Character  of  the 
soil.  Origin  of  its  fertility.  General  influence  of  geologic  and  geo 
graphic  conditions  on  mankind. 

IN  beginning  the  study  of  the  geography  of  North 
America,  it  is  well  for  us  to  form  a  clear  idea  as  to  the 
object  which  we  should  have  in  view  in  this  task.  With 
a  distinct  aim  before  us,  it  is  easily  seen  that  labor 
may  be  spared  in  the  effort.  It  is  a  large  task  to  form 
even  the  most  general  idea  of  the  history  and  condi 
tions  of  a  great  area  of  the  earth's  surface.  The  amount 
of  knowledge  concerning  any  one  of  the  continents  is 
so  vast  that  to  secure  a  general  view  of  its  conditions 
we  have  to  neglect  the  greater  part  of  the  details  con 
cerning  its  growth  and  structure.  If  our  plan  be  clearly 
marked,  we  can  more  easily  put  the  unnecessary  learn 
ing  aside. 

The  most  of  our  school  geographies  seek  to  present 
to  the  student  a  picture  of  the  existing  conditions  on 
the  earth's  surface,  to  show  him  the  shape  of  the 
lands,  the  boundaries  of  states,  the  character  of  the  im- 


2  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA, 

portant  natural  features,  the  conditions  of  commerce ;  in 
other  words,  to  give  him  a  picture  of  the  earth,  or  a  par 
ticular  part  of  it,  as  it  now  is.  In  this  little  volume  we 
are  to  consider  something  more  than  is  commonly  pre 
sented  in  such  work,  the  intention  being  to  show  the 
student  in  a  general  way  how  the  continent  of  North 
America  has  come  by  its  shape,  through  what  steps  it 
has  become  a  land,  how  the  stages  of  its  growth  have 
affected  its  climate,  and  thus  have  influenced  the  charac 
ter  of  living  things  which  have  found  a  place  upon  its 
lands,  and  finally  in  what  manner  the  past  history  of  the 
continent,  by  determining  the  store  of  mineral  materials 
under  the  earth,  the  shape  of  its  surface,  the  nature  of 
its  soil  and  climate,  measures  its  fitness  for  the  uses  of 
man  ;  in  a  word,  how  the  history  of  its  people  has  been 
influenced  by  geographic  conditions,  and  thus  depends 
on  the  laws  which  have  controlled  the  development  of  a 
continental  mass. 

In  the  effort  to  see  how  the  geography  of  any  country 
has  influenced  the  life  of  the  animals  and  plants  which 
have  found  a  place  upon  it,  it  is  well  for  the  student  to 
begin  his  task  by  noticing  a  number  of  familiar  facts, 
so  familiar,  indeed,  that  they  readily  escape  attention, 
which  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  effect  of  surrounding 
conditions  on  the  sensitive  living  creatures.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  all  the  living  tenants  of  the  lands  and  waters 
are  readily  and  largely  influenced  by  the  conditions  of 
the  nature  about  them. 

Any  one  who  has  made  himself  moderately  familiar 
with  the  round  of  the  seasons  has  observed  the  profound 
effect  arising  from,  changes  of  climate.  In  the  regions 
north  and  south  of  the  tropics  each  year  brings  periods 
of  winter  and  of  summer ;  with  the  change  in  the 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  3 

amount  of  heat  the  living  beings  pass  from  the  sleep  of 
the  winter  season  to  the  activity  of  summer  time.  In 
the  springtime,  when  the  sun  rises  higher  above  the 
horizon  and  sends  more  heat  to  the  earth,  we  perceive 
the  effect  of  the  alteration  on  the  development  of  life. 
The  seeds  are  stimulated  to  growth,  and  most  of  the  ani 
mals  which  have  reposed  in  hidden  places  come  forth 
and  enter  on  their  busy  lives.  Every  year  thus  affords  a 
beautiful  lesson  on  the  effects  of  simple  changes  in  the 
events  of  the  outer  world.  As  the  sun  ascends  higher, 
it  brings  with  it  a  tropical  climate,  which  marches  over 
the  surface  nearly  to  the  poles;  then  as  the  sun  returns 
south  in  its  annual  course,  the  conditions  of  polar  cold 
sweep  down  towards  the  equator.  The  difference  be 
tween  the  tropical  belt  of  the  world  and  the  regions 
beyond  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  within  the  tropics  it  is  al 
ways  warm  with  something  like  the  warmth  of  summer 
in  higher  latitudes,  while  near  the  poles  the  temperature 
is  tropical  for  only  a  short  time.  If  the  summer  heat 
continued  throughout  the  year  in  any  high  latitude, 
palms  and  other  plants  which  cannot  withstand  the  cold 
would  develop  over  nearly  all  the  earth's  lands. 

After  we  have  in  mind  the  effect  produced  by  the 
alternate  rising  and  sinking  of  the  sun  in  high  latitudes, 
it  is  well  next  to  note  the  effects  on  the  district  about 
us  caused  by  differences  in  the  geographic  character 
of  the  land.  In  any  country  where  there  is  a  range 
of  heights  of  even  a  few  feet,  where  there  are  streams 
and  hills  however  small,  we  may  with  a  little  study  see 
how  the  nature  of  the  surface,  by  determining  the 
character  of  the  soil,  and  the  amount  of  water  it  con 
tains,  affects  the  lives  of  the  plants  and  animals.  In 
a  lake  or  arm  of  the  sea  we  note  that  in  the  deeper 


4  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

water  there  are  no  plants  such  as  we  have  upon  the 
land  ;  the  vegetable  life  is  limited  to  certain  soft  forms 
which  are  without  leaves,  or  roots,  or  seeds  of  a 
distinct  kind.  These  aquatic  plants  live  altogether  be 
neath  the  surface  of  the  waters,  or  at  times  tolerate 
the  air  for  a  few  hours  at  low  tide.  Close  to  the  shore, 
where  the  water  is  shallow,  we  may,  if  the  water  be 
fresh,  find  certain  higher  plants,  such  as  our  lilies,  and 
rushes,  which  have  distinct  leaves,  roots,  and  seed,  and 
can  maintain  themselves  with  their  roots  below  the 
surface  of  the  water,  but  with  their  upper  parts  within 
the  air.  Next  the  shore,  if  the  ground  happens  to  be 
marshy,  —  that  is,  neither  wet  nor  dry,  —  bushes  and  a 
few  kinds  of  trees  may  grow,  forms  which  cannot  inhabit 
the  water,  and  are  equally  incapable  of  living  on  the  high 
land.  Passing  yet  further  above  the  water  to  the  lands 
of  a  medium  degree  of  wetness,  yet  other  forms  of  lowly 
plants  or  trees  possess  the  land.  On  the  arid  hilltops 
we  find  another  assemblage  of  plants  unlike  any  of 
those  which  dwell  on  lower  ground. 

Although  it  is  not  easy  to  see  that  the  animal  life  is 
limited  in  the  same  narrow  way  by  geographic  condi 
tions  as  is  the  vegetable  world,  closer  inquiry  shows  us 
that  in  fact  most  animals,  because  they  depend  for  their 
subsistence  on  particular  kinds  of  plants,  are  also  pro 
foundly  affected  by  peculiarities  of  the  soil.  This  is 
particularly  the  case  with  insects,  a  group  which  con 
tains  more  kinds  of  creatures  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
animal  kingdom  put  together.  Most  insects  require 
particular  parts  of  plants  for  their  food.  Even  those 
forms  which  live  on  other  insects  have  to  maintain 
themselves  where  their  prey  is  plentiful.  The  insects 
of  the  swamp  differ  in  a  clear  way  from  those  of  the 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  5 

upland.  Thus  in  the  state  of  nature,  in  every  country, 
the  living  beings  are  distributed  with  reference  to  the 
character  of  the  soil,  whence  all  land  life  springs.  The 
character  of  this  soil  depends  upon  the  geography  of 
the  country.  The  underlying  rocks,  the  rivers,  lakes, 
hills,  and  mountains,  mainly  determine  the  nature  of 
that  soil,  whether  it  be  wet  or  dry,  of  clay,  sandy  or 
stony.  All  these  features  are  fixed  by  the  geological 
history  of  the  country :  they  can  be  accounted  for  only 
where  we  know  its  past  history, — how  it  came  to  have 
its  present  form. 

Not  only  is  the  higher  life  of  a  land  shaped  by  its 
geographic  conditions,  but  the  life  of  man  is  influenced 
even  more  than  that  of  any  other  animal  by  the  circum 
stances  which  surround  him.  If  he  be  a  farmer,  the 
character  of  the  crops  he  cultivates  will  be  determined 
partly  by  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  yet  more  by  the 
character  of  the  climate,  —  the  amount  of  heat  which  the 
sun  sends  to  him,  or  the  share  of  rainfall  which  comes 
to  his  fields.  He  rears  those  crops  which  are  made 
possible  by  the  heat,  the  rain,  and  the  nature  of  the 
earth  on  which  they  fall.  In  the  Southern  states  of 
this  country  cotton  is  the  leading  product  of  the  fields. 
It  is  profitable  to  grow  it  there,  for  the  reason  that  the 
plant  requires  a  very  long  summer  to  mature  its  bolls, 
and  during  this  summer  there  must  be  a  considerable 
fall  of  rain,  and  all  the  while  a  rather  high  temperature. 
Moreover,  cotton  requires  a  sandy  rather  than  a  clayey 
soil,  and  the  ancient  history  of  that  part  of  the  continent, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  favored  the  construction  of 
soils  of  this  nature.  The  farmers  of  the  Northwestern 
states  find  their  profit  in  raising  grain.  That  region  is 
the  granary  of  the  continent,  —  indeed,  we  may  say  of 


6  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Europe  as  well,  —  for  the  reason  that  the  short,  rather 
dry  summer  affords  a  suitable  climate  for  the  develop 
ment  of  such  crops,  and  the  soil  is  generally  of  a  clayey 
nature,  having  this  quality  given  it  by  the  geological 
conditions  of  the  rocks  made  in  the  time  when  the  con 
tinent  was  forming.  Geographic  conditions,  those  now 
existing  or  those  which  have  ceased  to  be,  but  have  left 
their  marks  on  the  character  of  the  soil,  make  it  im 
possible  for  cotton  to  be  profitably  reared  in  the  North 
west,  or  wheat  in  the  Carolinas.  Or,  to  take  another 
instance,  the  state  of  Florida  is  unfit  for  the  tillage 
either  of  grain  or  of  cotton ;  the  latter  crop  will  grow 
there,  but  the  soil  is  not  of  a  nature  to  make  it  profitable. 
Florida  is  the  field  of  fruit  culture.  Its  semi-tropical 
climate  favors  the  development  of  oranges,  lemons, 
pineapples,  and  many  forms  of  fruit  and  vegetables. 
The  soil  is  generally  so  poor  that  these  plants  have  to 
be  grown  with  the  aid  of  artificial  manures,  and  so  that 
portion  of  the  country  is  by  nature  set  aside  for  garden 
ing.  The  character  of  the  soil,  combined  with  the 
character  of  the  climate  of  a  country,  serves  to  fix  the 
occupations  of  the  people  who  win  food  from  the  earth. 
Now  the  soil,  simple  as  it  seems  to  be  at  first  sight,  has 
always  a  very  wonderful  history.  So  much  depends  upon 
this  history  that  we  must  ask  the  reader  to  turn  his 
attention  for  a  moment  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  this 
film  of  loose  material  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  in 
which  the  plants  find  root. 

All  soils  consist  in  the  main  of  fine  bits  of  rock,  the 
particles  of  clay  and  sand  which  have  been  worn  from 
the  compact,  firm-set  under-rocks  of  the  earth,  by  the 
action  of  rain,  frost,  rivers,  waves,  and  the  roots  of 
plants,  as  well  as  by  the  decay  which  the  atmosphere 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  7 

brings  to  all  rock  material.     If  we  take  a  pinch  of  soil 
and  spread  it  out  thinly  upon  a  sheet  of  white  paper 
and    inspect   it   with  a  magnifying-glass,   we  find   that 
the  greater  part  of  the  material  is  commonly  made  up 
of  tolerably  coarse  grains,  large  enough  to  be  seen  by 
the  naked  eye  or  by  a  simple  microscope.     Mixed  with 
these  hard  bits  there  are  very  many  fragments  of  de 
cayed   roots,  leaves,   and   stems,   which  are  in   part   so 
finely  divided   that   they  give  the  mass  a  dark  color. 
Sinking  through  the  soil,  the  rain-water  constantly  takes 
a  little  of  the  decayed  rock  into  solution  as  salt  dissolves 
in  water.     This  dissolved  rock  material  is  taken  up  by 
the  roots  of  plants,  and  affords  the  ashy  matter  of  their 
bodies,  —  material  without  which  they  could  not  grow. 
On  the  proportion  of  lime,  potash,   phosphatic  matter, 
soda,  and  various  other  materials  which  the   decaying 
rock  affords  to  the  soil-water,  depends  the  fertility  of 
the  soil  ;  that  is,  its  fitness  to  nourish    crops,  whether 
those  of  wild  nature  or  of  the  tilled  fields.     If  the  bits 
which  make  the  soil  are  largely  composed  of  limestone, 
which  generally  contains  not  only  lime,  but  some  phos 
phatic    matter,   soda,   potash,   and   the   other   materials 
required  to  make  the  bodies  of  plants,  the  soil  will  be 
fertile.      If,   however,   it   be   in  the   main   made    lip    of 
quartzy  bits  of  sand,  the  plants  can  obtain  from  the  soil- 
water  but  little  nutriment,  and  therefore  the  fields  will 
be  sterile,  and  the  forests  or  the  cultivated  crops  scanty. 
The  proportion  of  fertilizing  materials  contained   in 
the   soil    depends    upon   the   conditions  which   existed 
when   the  rocks  from  which  the  soil  is  derived  were 
forming.     Nearly  all  our  rocks  were  formed  on  old  sea- 
floors.     If  the  geography  of  those  old  sea-floors,  that  is 
to  say,  the  conditions  of  temperature  and  other  circum- 


8  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

stances,  were  such  as  to  make  a  plentiful  life  of  shell 
fish  or  corals  on  the  bottom,  then  the  rocks  formed  from 
the  remains  of  these  creatures  will  abound  in  materials 
fit  for  plant  growth.  When  this  rock  matter  is  sub 
jected  to  decay  and  accumulates  in  the  soil,  the  plants 
will  flourish  upon  it.  Each  wheat  plant  will  appropriate 
the  waste  of  these  old  creatures  of  the  sea-floor,  and 
convert  the  chemical  materials  which  they  contributed 
to  the  rock  into  good  grain.  Thus  we  readily  see  that 
the  character  of  our  soils  depends  upon  geographic  con 
ditions  in  very  remote  time.  A  striking  instance  of  this 
effect  may  be  found  in  the  case  of  the  very  fertile  lime 
stone  lands  which  are  found  in  the  so-called  blue-grass 
district  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  These  soils  are  of 
extraordinary  fertility  and  of  such  endurance  to  cultiva 
tion  that  they  have  been  tilled  in  corn  without  manuring 
for  one  hundred  years  or  more.  They  owe  their  fertility 
to  the  fact  that  the  rock  contains  a  large  number  of  the 
remains  of  animals  somewhat  akin  to  the  shrimps. 
These  creatures  had  the  habit  of  storing  in  their  hard 
parts  a  great  deal  of  lime  phosphate,  which  is  the  most 
important  ingredient  in  soils  which  are  to  feed  grain. 
The  rocks  beneath  the  blue-grass  district  are  thin  sheets 
of  limestone  laid  one  above  the  other  to  the  thickness 
of  a  thousand  feet  or  more ;  here  and  there  there  are 
beds,  generally  only  a  few  inches  thick,  mainly  composed 
of  the  remains  of  these  little  creatures,  which  are  ex 
posed  to  the  atmosphere.  The^s  beds  decay  to  a  fine 
powder  which  works  down  through  the  hillsides,  min 
gles  with  the  soil,  and  so  gives  it  its  great  fertility  for 
crops  of  grain  and  grass. 

The  growth  of  ancient  animals  which  built  their  re 
mains  into  rock  was  determined,  as  is  the  growth   of 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA*  9 

creatures  of  to-day,  by  geographic  conditions.  Other 
circumstances  of  the  earth's  crust  determined  that  in  the 
course  of  time  these  old  sea-bottoms  should  be  elevated 
into  dry  land  and  exposed  to  the  actions  which  make 
soil.  Thus  we  see  that  each  stage  in  the  earth's  history 
prepares  the  way  for  the  later  stages  of  its  development. 
Our  life  of  to-day  depends  upon  the  conditions  of  re 
mote  times. 

Although  it  is  through  the  soil  and  climate  that  geo 
logical  conditions  most  intimately  affect  the  life  of  man, 
there  are  very  many  ways  in  which  the  geography  of 
the  past  and  present  influence  his  career.  Let  us,  for 
example,  note  the  influence  of  the  sea  on  the  occupations 
of  men.  Wherever  men's  dwelling-places  are  along  the 
shore,  they  find  a  considerable  share  of  their  food  in  the 
animals  of  the  sea.  They  are  thus  tempted  to  seafar 
ing,  to  the  construction  of  boats,  and  come  to  have  the 
peculiar  needs  which  such  life  imposes  on  man.  Yet 
later  in  their  development  they  find  a  profit  in  the  trade 
which  the  fields  of  the  sea  lay  wide  open  to  those  who 
dwell  upon  its  borders.  Thus,  while  inland  people  are 
limited  to  the  district  just  about  them  for  their  field  of 
action,  the  folk  next  to  the  shore  have  a  vastly  wider 
range  of  employment.  The  peculiarities  of  their  life 
depend  upon  the  way  in  which  the  lands  have  grown 
to  their  present  shape. 

The  fitness  of  the  shore  for  the  uses  of  the  mariner 
varies  greatly.  Where  the  coast  is  very  sandy  and 
there  are  no  large  rivers  passing  across  the  shore  to  the 
sea,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  dearth  of  harbors.  Only  small 
boats  which  can  be  dragged  through  the  surf  to  the  dry 
land  can  be  used,  and  so  it  comes  about  that  the  people 
along  such  coasts  usually  make  but  limited  use  of  the 


IO  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

ways  of  the  ocean.  On  the  other  hand,  in  regions  where 
harbors  abound,  as  along  the  northern  coast  of  the 
United  States,  both  on  its  eastern  and  western  faces,  or 
in  the  region  of  Northern  Europe,  Scandinavia,  Holland, 
and  England,  the  people  may  become  deep-sea  sailors 
and  range  over  the  oceans  to  the  furthest  lands  of  the 
earth.  These  peculiarities  of  coast  lines,  whether  they 
afford  good  harbors  or  no,  depend  upon  the  ancient  his 
tory  of  the  shores.  As  we  shall  see  further  on,  the  sin 
gular  abundance  of  harbors  about  the  North  Atlantic, 
which  have  made  the  people  of  those  lands  the  sailors 
of  the  world,  is  immediately  due  to  the  fact  that  in  for 
mer  stages  of  the  earth's  development  this  part  of  the 
coast  was  deeply  carved  by  glaciers  or  streams  of  ice. 

If  now  we  turn  our  attention  from  the  industries  of 
men,  which  are  related  to  the  mere  surface  of  the  earth, 
to  the  work  which  depends  on  the  underground  features, 
we  find  a  yet  more  striking  instance  of  the  effect  brought 
about  by  the  ancient  history  of  our  sphere.  Next  after 
the  wealth  which  comes  for  man's  use  from  the  soil,  we 
must  place  that  which  comes  from  the  mines.  In  look 
ing  over  a  map  of  North  America  which  shows  the 
mineral  fields  of  the  country,  we  observe  that,  although 
more  than  half  of  its  area  has  nothing  of  particular  use 
to  man  to  be  won  from  below  the  soil,  there  are  large 
districts  where  the  under-earth  is  richly  stored  with  a 
great  variety  of  materials  to  be  gained  by  mining. 
There  are  at  present  over  fifty  different  substances  of 
great  use  to  man  which  are  obtained  in  one  way  or 
another  from  the  realm  of  the  earth  which  lies  below 
the  soil  covering.  Iron,  copper,  lead,  zinc,  gold,  and  sil 
ver,  and  several  other  valuable  metals  ;  coal,  petroleum, 
natural  gas,  materials  which  serve  for  light,  warmth,  and 


GEOGRAPHY    OF     NORTH    AMERICA.  II 

the  sources  of  power ;  our  building-stones  ;  various  sub 
stances  which  serve  to  fertilize  the  fields  worn  by  crops  ; 
and  a  host  of  other  less  important  supplies  for  our  arts 
are  derived  from  this  nether  realm. 

Wherever  these  mineral  substances  abound,  the  profit 
from  winning  them  is  so  considerable  that  often,  to  the 
neglect  of  agriculture,  the  population  seeks  subsistence 
from  the  deeper  earth  below  the  soil.  Where  these 
substances  are  won,  as  in  most  cases  they  are,  by  delv 
ing  deep  beneath  the  surface,  the  men  who  follow  these 
pursuits  become  peculiar  in  their  methods  of  life,  their 
ways  of  thought  and  action.  These  peculiarities  of  the 
miner's  life  manifestly  depend  on  the  existence  of  par 
ticular  substances  in  limited  parts  of  the  world.  The 
presence  of  these  substances  in  the  crust  of  the  earth 
depends  upon  the  former  history  of  the  area  in  which 
they  lie ;  in  a  word,  upon  its  old  geographic  conditions. 
If  the  substance  sought  in  the  mine  be  coal,  we  know 
that  it  .is  present,  because  in  a  very  ancient  day  that 
particular  field  was  occupied  by  great  swamps,  in  which 
peaty  matter  was  deposited  in  the  manner  in  which 
we  may  now  see  it  accumulating  in  our  ordinary  bogs. 
After  a  thick  layer  of  peat  was  formed,  the  land  it  occu 
pied  sank  beneath  the  sea,  and  sand  and  clay  were 
accumulated  upon  it,  which,  while  concealing  it  and  pre 
serving  it  from  complete  decay,  converted  the  mass  to 
coal.  .  By  further  change  it  has  been  re-elevated,  so  that 
it  is  accessible  to  man.  Ancient  climate  and  ancient 
geography,  in  other  words,  led  to  the  production  of  the 
coal  bed.  So  with  all  the  other  substances  won  by  the 
miner ;  each  owes  its  abundance  in  the  particular  field 
to  conditions  of  the  climate  or  of  the  other  geological 
features  which  occurred  in  the  past. 


12  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

It  is  hard  to  give  the  reader  a  clear  idea  as  to  the 
intimate  way  in  which  the  geography  of  the  present  day 
determines  the  life  now  existing  on  the  earth's  surface ; 
yet  it  is  important  he  should  see  something  of  these 
facts,  even  if  the  instances  he  can  consider  are  but  few 
in  number.  Perhaps  the  best  illustrations  of  how  closely 
the  life  of  the  earth  depends  upon  surrounding  circum 
stances  are  afforded  by  field  and  garden  plants.  A 
good  example  is  found  in  the  principal  American  grain, 
—  the  maize  or  Indian  corn,  which  furnishes  by  far  the 
most  valuable  grain  crop  of  the  continent.  It  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  the  farmer  to  have  a  crop  of  this 
corn  ;  but  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  tilled  portion  of 
North  America,  generally  in  the  region  north  of  the 
Great  Lakes,  the  summer  is  too  short  for  the  plant  to 
mature  its  seeds.  They  are  killed  by  frost  before  they 
are  fully  developed.  By  carefully  choosing  each  year 
the  plants  which  mature  earlier  than  their  neighbors  in 
the  field,  and  using  seed  from  these,  varieties  have  been 
formed  which  hasten  their  growth,  and  so  in  a  measure 
adapt  themselves  to  the  needs  of  the  short  northern 
summer.  The  maize  of  Alabama  requires  five  months 
in  its  round  from  seed  to  seed  ;  by  selection  particular 
varieties  have  been  formed  which  will  come  to  maturity 
in  regions  where  it  is  but  three  months  between  the 
frost  of  spring  and  autumn.  Further  than  this  it  seems 
impossible  to  go,  and  so  there  is  a  limit  determined  by 
the  temperature  beyond  which  the  maize  cannot  be 
grown  with  profit. 

The  distribution  of  animals  in  the  sea  is  even  more 
closely  determined,  by  the  temperature  than  that  of  the 
plants  on  the  land.  Thus  in  the  warm  waters  south  of 
Cape  Cod  there  are  many  kinds  of  animals  which  cannot 


GEOGRAPHV    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  13 

pass  around  this  small  cape  into  the  colder  waters  of 
Massachusetts  Bay.  The  most  vigorous  and  active  fish 
south  of  the  Cape,  the  blue-fish,  a  creature  there  greatly 
developed,  cannot  maintain  itself  north  of  the  Cape. 
Occasionally,  in  the  last  two  centuries,  it  has  in  the 
warmer  seasons  worked  around  the  promontory,  and  for 
a  year  or  two  gained  a  place  in  Massachusetts  Bay.  It 
has  seemed  likely  that  it  would  permanently  win  this 
new  field,  but  each  time  it  has  been  driven  back  by  the 
cold  of  the  water.  The  difference  is  also  marked  in  the 
mollusca,  or  shell-fish ;  a  number  of  species  flourish  just 
south  of  the  Cape,  which  do  not  appear  in  the  some 
what  colder  waters  a  few  miles  to  the  northward.  The 
difference  between  the  temperature  of  the  waters  north 
and  south  of  Cape  Cod  is  brought  about  by  the  influ 
ence  of  this  small  promontory,  projecting  only  forty 
miles  from  the  main  shore,  on  the  movement  of  the 
cold  current  which  creeps  down  the  coast  of  New  Eng 
land  and  Nova  Scotia  from  the  Arctic  regions,  and 
which  is  finally  arrested  in  its  movement  by  the  hook 
of  Cape  Cod. 

We  need  to  comprehend  these  effects  of  differences 
of  a  geographic  sort,  and  conceive  them  as  applying,  in 
a  greater  or  less  measure,  to  all  living  or  extinct  species 
of  animals  and  plants,  in  order  to  understand  how  far 
the  history  of  the  earth  in  the  past  has  served  to  affect 
the  beings  of  to-day,  particularly  the  highest  of  them, 
—  man.  Most  animals  and  all  plants  are,  as  regards 
heat,  delicate  thermometers.  They  are  affected,  too, 
by  the  winds,  by  the  moisture  of  the  air  and  soil,  and 
by  the  qualities  of  the  soil  itself,  the  plants  directly, 
and  animals  through  plants  ;  and  so  the  world  of  life  is 
swayed  about  by  every  accident  which  affects  these  cir- 


14  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

cumstances.  Every  geographic  change  alters  the  height 
of  the  land  or  the  shape  of  the  sea,  and  thus  affects  the 
currents  of  the  air  bringing  heat  and  moisture,  the 
rivers  which  flow  from  the  continents,  or  the  marine 
currents  which  convey  the  waters  of  the  sea  hither  and 
thither  over  its  surface. 

The  most  important  lessons  which  naturalists  have 
learned  by  the  study  of  fossils  contained  in  rocks  con 
cern  the  succession  of  life  in  various  stages  of  the  earth's 
history.  At  the  present  time  there  are  somewhere 
about  half  a  million  different  kinds  of  animals  and  plants 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Each  species  resembles 
more  or  less  closely  other  related  species,  so  that  we 
have  to  look  carefully  to  see  the  difference  between 
them,  as,  for  instance,  between  the  different  kinds  of 
sparrows  or  the  several  sorts  of  oaks.  The  greater 
number  of  groups  are  separated  in  character  by  wider 
differences,  such  as  those  which  distinguish  the  beech 
from  the  oak  ;  but  the  white  oak  does  not  produce  any 
thing  but  white  oaks  from  its  seed,  and  the  sparrows 
each  rear  broods  of  their  own  kind.  If  we  search  the 
rocks  which  were  formed  on  the  earth's  surface  say  half 
a  million  years  ago,  —  a  very  recent  time  in  the  earth's 
history,  —  we  find  by  the  fossils  they  contain  that  there 
were  also  oaks  and  beeches  and  sparrows,  and  these 
were  of  species  related  to  those  now  living,  undoubtedly 
the  forefathers  of  living  forms,  but  they  differed  from 
them  in  most  cases  in  a  clear  way  :.they  differ  as  much 
from  living  oaks  or  beeches  as  the  species  of  these 
plants  now  do  from  each  other.  Thus,  stage  by  stage, 
we  can  go  back  into  the  remote  past  of  the  earth,  each 
step  separated,  it  may  be,  from  the  preceding  by  a  mil 
lion  years,  until  we  have  found  somewhere  near  a  hun- 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  15 

dred  different  stages  in  the  earth's  history,  each  showing 
by  its  fossils  that  the  life,  though  akin  to  that  which 
went  before  and  that  which  came  after,  had  a  particular 
character.  Studying  these  facts,  geologists  have  one 
and  all  come  to  the  conclusion  that  all  the  life  of  to-day 
has  come  down  to  our  time  from  ancestors  of  earlier 
days,  and  has  indeed  descended  from  the  first  beings 
which  came  into  existence  on  the  surface  of  this  sphere. 
A  yet  more  important  conclusion  derived  from  the 
study  of  these  plants  and  animals  of  the  past  and  their 
relation  to  the  living  creatures  of  to-day  is  that,  though 
many  kinds  of  animals  have  perished  at  various  periods 
in  the  past,  leaving  no  descendants  in  our  time,  life 
as  a  whole,  both  that  of  animals  and  plants,  has  always 
steadily  been  going  upward  in  its  organization  towards 
higher  states  of  being.  If  we  consider  the  earlier 
stages, — as,  for  instance,  that  known  as  the  Cambrian, 
which  is  near  the  time  when  life  came  upon  the  earth,  — 
we  find  in  the  fossils  of  the  beds  then  laid  down  on  the 
sea-floor  no  fishes,  no  insects ;  only  animals  as  lowly  in 
structure  as  our  shell-fish,  or  worms,  or  certain  kindred 
of  our  crustaceans.  There  were  apparently  no  land 
plants,  only  imperfect  sea-weeds,  or  perhaps  mosses  and 
lichens,  on  part  of  the  continents  which  had  arisen  from 
the  sea.  There  were  no  lizards,  frogs,  birds,  or  four- 
footed  beasts  of  any  kind.  The  lands  were  probably 
destitute  of  life,  except  for  the  lower  kinds  of  plants  and 
perhaps  for  a  few  worm-like  animals,  or,  it  may  have 
been,  the  lowest  grades  of  insects.  In  the  latter  chap 
ters  of  the  great  stone  book,  the  leaves  of  which  are  the 
strata  or  rock  beds  of  the  earth,  we  find  stage  by  stage 
the  higher  animals  and  plants  appearing.  First  among 
the  plants  come  the  ferns,  and  then  palm-li^e  creatures, 


l6  GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

and  only  in  a  relatively  late  day  our  flowering  plants 
and  those  which  bear  fruit  and  large  seeds  make  their 
appearance.  The  back-boned  animals  also  show  the 
same  steadfast  advance  :  first  come  the  fishes  ;  then, 
after  a  long  time,  the  reptiles ;  then  the  birds,  at  first 
with  long,  lizard-like  tails  and  teeth,  then  the  higher 
song  birds.  Sucking  animals  are  wanting  until  a  late 
day;  then  they  came  with  lowly  forms  related  to  the 
kangaroo.  Later,  higher  kinds  appear ;  and  finally  the 
history  is  rounded  with  the  appearance  of  man. 

All  the  while  these  wonderful  changes  which  have 
led  life  upward  in  the  scale  of  being  have  been  going 
on,  the  continents  have  been  growing,  slowly  rising 
from  the  sea-floor,  gradually  dividing  the  oceans  into 
separate  seas,  shaping  the  paths  of  rivers,  and  generally 
determining  the  geographic  influences  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  have  so  much  to  do  with  the  conditions  of  life. 
Every  living  species  of  plant  and  animal  has  been  com 
pelled  to  move  hither  and  thither  with  the  changes  in 
the  form  of  the  land.  The  more  active  kinds,  those 
which  were  better  fitted  to  move  here  and  there  with 
the  changes  in  the  land  and  the  consequent  alteration 
of  climate  and  other  conditions,  have  lived  because  of 
their  vigor,  of  their  intelligence,  their  power  of  associ 
ating  their  own  action  with  that  of  other  creatures ;  and 
so  in  the  changing  geography  of  the  earth  the  abler 
forms  survive  and  leave  their  strong  progeny  to  inhabit 
the  world,  while  the  weaker  are  destroyed  through  the 
process  of  change.  Let  us  suppose  that  Cape  Cod, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  an  important  geographic 
feature  affecting  the  climate  of  the  sea-water  on  the 
coast  of  the  United  States,  were  swept  away,  as  it  might 
in  a  very  easy  way  be  removed  by  the  waves.  Then 


GEOGRAPHY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  If 

there  would  arise  a  contention  between  the  creatures 
living  to  the  north  and  south  of  it  as  to  which  should 
possess  the  portion  of  the  coast  formerly  occupied  by 
the  Cape.  The  more  vigorous  would  gain  the  ground, 
and  in  this  way  a  slight  effect  towards  peopling  the 
earth  with  s^ong  beings  would  be  brought  about.  A 
vast  number  of  such  changes,  some  of  far  greater  mo 
ment,  have  tested  the  qualities  of  animals  and  plants, 
their  fitness  to  remain  the  masters  of  the  earth.  In 
these  trials  the  lowly  and  weak  have  been  destroyed, 
the  higher  and  stronger  have  been  preserved. 

It  is  very  hard  to  tell  the  story  of  life  in  the  past 
within  the  limits  of  a  few  pages  ;  but  further  on  we 
shall  try  to  see  in  the  history  of  North  America,  in  a 
somewhat  detailed  way,  how  the  advance  of  organic 
life  has  been  promoted  by  the  successive  and  ceaseless 
changes  in  the  shape  of  the  lands  and  the  seas. 


1 8         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 


Shape  and  grouping  of  the  lands  and  seas.  Effect  of  these  features  on  the 
conditions  of  the  earth.  Method  of  interpreting  the  history  of  the  land  : 
process  of  growth  of  North  America.  Successive  stages  of  the  devel 
opment  in  its  geography  and  in  its  organic  life.  Brief  history  of  the 
organic  and  inorganic  changes  in  Cambrian,  Silurian,  Devonian,  Car 
boniferous,  Triassic,  Jurassic,  Cretaceous,  and  Tertiary  times.  The 
coming  of  man. 

IN  this  chapter  we  shall  consider  the  manner  in 
which  the  continent  of  North  America  has  grown,  and 
the  effect  of  its  growth  on  the  part  of  the  world  in 
which  it  is  situated.  Looking  upon  a  general  map  of 
the  world,  or,  better,  on  a  globe,  which  gives  a  clearer 
notion  of  the  earth  forms,  we  perceive  that  there  are 
two  great  groups  of  land  masses  breaking  the  surface 
of  the  seas.  These  are  the  larger  mass  of  the  Old 
World  continents,  —  Asia,  Europe,  Africa,  and  Austra 
lia,  with  their  neighboring  islands,  —  and  the  twin  con 
tinents  of  the  New  World,  —  North  and  South  America. 
The  Old  World  continents  are  either  close  together,  or 
connected  with  each  other  by  archipelagoes.  The  New 
World  continents,  though  tied  into  one  mass  by  a  long 
isthmus,  are,  except  in  the  northwest  corner  of  America, 
parted  from  the  Old  World  by  wide  and  deep  seas. 
Three  of  the  great  continents  are  of  distinctly  triangular 
shape  ;  Africa,  North  America,  and  South  America  are 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         19 

three-sided  figures,  rather  acute  triangles  in  general 
form,  their  points  turned  towards  the  south  pole,  their 
bases  to  the  north.  Asia  has  traces  of  the  same  form  ; 
and  Australia,  if  we  consider  not  only  the  part  of  the 
continent  which  is  above  the  water,  but  also  that  which 
remains  in  the  form  of  shallow  seas,  has  also  something 
like  the  form'Sf  Africa  and  the  Americas. 

The  grouping  of  the  continents  and  their  place  in  the 
world  of  waters  brings  about  one  of  the  most  beneficent 
arrangements  in  the  system  of  the  earth's  machinery. 
By  this  arrangement  the  ocean  currents  are  led  from 
the  tropics,  where  their  waters  are  heated,  towards  the 
poles,  where  they  give  off  the  heat  they  acquired  near 
the  equator,  thus  warming  the  sea  and  the  adjacent 
islands  in  a  remarkable  manner.  For  instance,  the  Gulf 
Stream,  which,  as  it  flows  westward  across  the  tropical 
part  of  the  Atlantic  as  a  broad  current  impelled  by  the 
trade  winds,  is  turned  to  the  northward  by  the  northern 
part  of  South  America  and  the  southern  portion  of 
North  America,  and  made  to  flow  into  the  northern 
Atlantic.  This  current  is  very  broad  and  deep ;  it 
carries  many  times  as  much  water  as  all  the  rivers  of 
the  world  ;  and  this  stream,  warmed  by  the  tropical  suns, 
carries  with  its  tide  more  heat  into  the  Arctic  circle 
than  comes  to  the  earth  in  that  realm  from  the  direct 
rays  of  the  sun.  If  the  continents  did  not  form  great 
walls  across  the  seas,  the  equatorial  current  which  the 
trade  winds  produce  and  send  in  a  westerly  direction 
would  go  straight  around  the  earth,  and  none  of  its 
heat  would  be  turned  to  high  latitudes  about  either  pole. 
In  such  a  condition  of  the  earth,  Europe  and  the  parts 
of  North  America  north  of  the  parallel  of  45°  would  be 
uninhabitable  by  man,  from  the  intensity  of  the  cold. 


2O         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

This  would  also  be  the  case  with  the  southern  parts  of 
South  America.  At  the  same  time,  the  heat  of  the 
tropics,  not  having  the  chance  to  escape,  which  is  now 
afforded  by  the  ocean  streams  which  the  continents 
divert  towards  either  pole,  would  be  far  greater  than  at 
present,  probably  too  great  for  the  life  of  man.  Thus, 
by  their  position  in  the  seas,  the  continents  in  a  very 
simple  way  operate  to  improve  the  climate  of  the  earth, 
to  make  the  realms  both  of  land  and  sea  better  suited 
for  the  varied  forms  of  living  beings. 

Next  let  us  note  the  fact  that  the  large  surface  of  the 
continents  affords  a  valuable  site  for  the  development 
of  the  highly  organized  creatures  of  the  land.  The  sea 
has  but  lowly  forms  of  life.  With  the  exception  of  the 
whales  and  a  few  other  suck-giving  animals  the  creatures 
which  dwell  therein  are,  whether  animals  or  plants,  gen 
erally  of  a  much  lower  organization  than  those  which 
occupy  the  land.  The  studies  of  naturalists  have  made  it 
plain  that  detached  islands  are  by  their  conditions  not 
favorable  to  the  development  of  a  high  order  of  life. 
Even  the  greater  of  them,  such  as  Madagascar,  cannot 
include  within  their  area  any  such  great  variety  of  con 
ditions  of  soil  and  climate  as  even  the  smallest  of  the 
continents  affords.  If  a  considerable  change  of  climate 
comes  to  such  an  island,  the  creatures  upon  it  have  but 
a  small  chance  to  move  to  and  fro  to  realms  which  may 
better  suit  them.  The  chances  of  life  in  general  are 
small  in  such  an  island  district ;  and  as  the  bettering  of 
the  life  depends  upon  the  opportunity  to  take  advantage 
of  varied  conditions,  such  detached  islands  do  not  afford 
a  favorable  field  for  the  development  of  organic  forms. 
If  the  land  areas  of  the  earth  had  remained  in  the  form 
of  detached  islands  in  which  the  continents  began  theu 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         21 

growth,  it  seems  certain  that  the  air-breathing  animals 
would  never  have  attained  anything  like  the  high  posi 
tion  which  they  have  won  on  the  ampler  fields  that  now 
exist,  It  is  because  the  development  of  the  continents 
has  so  much  importance  in  the  history  of  life  that  we 
shall  undertake  in  this  chapter  to  trace  the  process  by 
which  the  land  of  North  America  has  grown  to  its  pres 
ent  highly  organized  form. 

Looking  at  the  great  united  mass  of  the  North  Ameri-'^V, 
can  continent,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  it  has  grown  * 
to  its  present  shape  from  the  detached  islands  of  the 
earlier  geologic  time.  But  the  students  of  the  past 
history  of  the  earth  are  by  their  inquiries  made  sure 
that  this  apparently  firm-set  land  has  undergone  a  vast 
series  of  progressive  changes  connected  with  its  in 
crease, —  changes  which  may  not  unfitly  be  compared 
to  those  that  occur  in  the  growth  of  any  animal  or 
plant.  Before  entering  on  our  account  of  the  develop 
ment  of  North  America  it  will  be  well  for  the  reader 
to  have  in  mind  a  general  idea  as  to  the  way  in  which, 
from  a  study  of  the  rocks,  it  is  possible  to  ascertain  how 
the  solid  land  has  acquired  its  present  size  and  shape. 

The  easiest  way  to  understand  the  methods  of  geo 
logic  study  is  by  comparing  them  with  those  which  are 
used  in  making  out  the  history  of  men  in  countries 
where  we  have  no  historic  records,  Thus  in  Egypt,  in 
Mesopotamia,  and  in  other  countries,  the  chronicles 
are  either  wanting  or  so  imperfect  that  we  cannot  tell 
the  varieties  of  people  which  have  in  succession  occu 
pied  the  land.  The  student  of  the  ancient  human  races 
in  those  countries  finds  his  way  to  the  facts  by  study 
ing  the  remains  which  the  several  folk  in  succession 
have  left  in  the  ground.  Men  often  build  their  habita- 


22          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

tions  for  thousands  of  years  on  the  same  site.  When  a 
city  is  ruined  by  fire  or  earthquake,  or  devastated  by  an 
enemy,  the  place  may  remain  for  a  little  while  uninhab 
ited,  but  the  reasons  which  led  to  the  ancient  settle 
ment  commonly  led  to  the  construction  of  a  new  town, 
and  so  to  the  depth  of  many  feet  in  the  same  place 
the  ruins  of  one  age  are  piled  on  those  of  the  next 
preceding.  Now  let  us  suppose  that  stray  coins  or 
other  buried  treasures  of  each  age  lie  in  the  layers  of 
debris  formed  during  the  several  periods  of  occupation. 
By  digging  away  the  debris,  one  stratum  after  the  other, 
it  is  thus  often  easy  to  determine  the  successions  of  the 
people  even  where  coins  are  occasionally  wanting ;  frag 
ments  of  tools  or  of  arms  can  be  interpreted  so  as  to 
show  the  student  the  successions  of  the  races  which 
have  occupied  the  ground. 

The  work  of  the  geologist  in  determining  the  succes 
sive  ages  of  the  world  is  in  general  principles  precisely 
like  that  of  the  student  who  concerns  himself  with  the 
ancient  history  of  man.  The  likeness  will  be  perhaps 
clearer  to  the  reader  if  we  suppose  him  to  under 
take  an  inquiry  concerning  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
North  America.  All  over  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and 
in  other  parts  of  the  country,  he  will  find  scattered  the 
plentiful  remains  of  the  Indians  who  were  recently 
expelled  by  the  whites.  Arrow-heads,  stone  hammers 
and  hatchets,  here  and  there  bits  of  pottery,  or  ancient 
graves,  show  the  recent  possession  of  the  country  by 
savages.  Now  and  then,  below  the  level  of  the  upper 
or  soil  stratum,  we  find  remains  of  a  slightly  more  culti 
vated  tribe  of  aborigines,  the  Mound-builders,  and  those 
folk  who  made  the  great  fortifications  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley.  It  is  easy  to  prove  that  these  Mound-builders 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  23 

were  earlier  than  the  tribes  known  to  the  whites,  by 
the  fact  that  their  remains  lie  generally  below  the  level 
occupied  by  the  fragments  of  worked  stone  and  earthen 
ware  left  by  the  later  ordinary  Indians  who  were  known 
to  our  people.  Now  let  us  suppose  that  the  observer 
has  a  mind  to  dig  deeper,  and  to  pass  altogether  through 
the  soil  coating.  He  will,  at  most  points  in  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  —  indeed,  over  much  of  the  area  of  the 
continent,  —  come  at  once  uppnj-ocks  which  are  full  of 
fossils.  The  stone  in  which  they  are  held  is  laid  in 
successive  layers,  which  were  evidently  deposited  one 
after  the  other,  each  carrying,  in  general,  numerous 
remains  of  animals  or  plants.  He  knows  these  re 
mains  to  have  once  been  living,  by  their  general  like 
ness  to  the  creatures  of  to-day ;  but  when  he  proceeds 
to  compare  them  with  the  forms  now  dwelling  on  sea 
and  land,  he  finds  that  they  differ  in  a  very  striking  way 
from  those  now  in  existence :  probably  not  a  single 
species  will  be  of  the  same  sort  as  those  now  dwelling 
on  the  earth.  In  a  word,  he  has  found  written  in  the 
great  stone  book  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  earth 
which  came  long  before  the  present  stage  in  that 
history. 

With  his  own  labor,  aided  by  the  work  of  others,  the 
student  can  then  proceed  to  trace  the  distribution  of 
these  beds  containing  fossils.  He  is  almost  sure  to 
learn  that  they  exist  not  only  where  he  has  found  them, 
but  that  they  have  a  great  extension  over  the  continent. 
For  instance,  finding  certain  beds  in  the  Ohio  Valley, 
guiding  himself  always  by  observing  that  he  has  the 
same  set  of  fossils  in  the  beds,  he  will  probably  discover 
that,  on  journeying  a  few  miles  eastward,  they  become 
overlaid  by  strata  containing  another  assemblage  of 


24         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

fossils  which  were  clearly  formed  at  a  later  day.  Yet 
further  east,  say  in  the  state  of  New  York  or  in  Penn 
sylvania,  he  may  come  upon  a  place  where  the  beds  he 
originally  found  are  upturned  in  mountains,  or  have  had 
the  higher-lying  strata  stripped  off  by  the  action  of 
rivers  or  other  forces ;  and  so  he  finds  himself  once 
again  on  the  same  level  in  the  rocks.  Let  us  suppose 
that,  from  the  character  of  the  fossils,  he  has  deter 
mined  that  the  beds  he  is  studying  were  formed  on  the 
sea-floor.  This  is  generally  easily  ascertained,  as,  for 
instance,  by  the  presence  of  abundant  stony  corals. 
We  know  that  such  corals  never  flourish  save  in  the 
waters  of  the  sea.  Therefore  the  beds  in  which  they 
are  found  were  certainly  old  sea-floors ;  and  so  the 
student  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  wherever  the 
given  beds  exist,  that  portion  of  the  continent  was,  at 
the  time  when  they  were  constructed,  below  the  level 
of  the  sea.  In  his  studies  of  the  particular  group  of 
rocks  it  will  often  happen  that,  in  going  in  a  particular 
direction,  he  finds  that  sand  begins  to  appear  in  the 
limestone  beds,  then  pebbles,  and  finally  he  comes  to  a 
place  where  he  can  find  marks  of  sea-shore  action  or 
other  evidence  of  the  beating  of  the  waves,  or  even,  in 
rarer  cases,  the  imprint  of  raindrops  on  the  muds  left 
bare  in  the  recession  of  the  tide.  He  thus  knows  that 
there  was  an  old  shore  line  in  this  position,  and  that 
beyond  it  lay  a  portion  of  the  continent  which  was 
above  the  level  of  the  sea  at  thf1  time  when  the  strata 
he  has  been  studying  were  laid  down  on  the  neighboring 
sea-floor. 

After  having  determined  the  place  of  the  sea  and 
land  in  one  stage  of  the  earth's  history  marked  by  the 
beds  he  has  been  studying,  he  may  take  in  succession 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         25 

the  strata  which  are  above  or  below  those  on  which  he 
began  his  inquiries,  and  so,  after  having  examined  a 
great  many  thousand  feet  in  thickness  of  the  beds,  de 
termine  a  great  many  different  groups  of  fossils,  each 
the  ancestors  of  those  in  the  following  strata.  The  geol 
ogists,  or  rather  many  geologists  working  together  for  a 
hundred  years  or  more,  have  succeeded  in  interpreting 
the  history  of  the  earth's  past  in  substantially  the  same 
way  as  we  determined  the  succession  of  peoples  in 
Egypt  or  Mesopotamia. 

In  the  way  above  described,  geologists  have  sought 
to  determine  how  the  continent  of  North  America  has 
grown  to  its  present  form.  So  far  this  difficult  task 
has  brought  us  only  a  part  of  the  truth  we  seek  to 
know  concerning  the  history  of  this  continent.  The 
story  of  a  great  land  is  not  like  the  well-arranged  his 
tory  of  a  people :  it  is  rather  as  if  we  had  a  volume 
describing  the  successive  years  of  English  history  with 
the  pages  torn  apart  and  buried  in  many  different 
places  ;  some  of  them  so  affected  by  decay  as  to  be 
illegible,  others  utterly  destroyed.  To  put  this  scat 
tered  work  into  a  shape  to  tell  a  connected  story  would, 
as  we  readily  see,  require  a  great  deal  of  skill  and  labor. 

Nevertheless,  this  arduous  work  of  tracing  the  his-  / 
tory  of  North  America  has  brought  us  to  a  few  general 
conclusions  concerning  the  history  of  this  land.  The 
most  important  of  these  we  will  now  endeavor  to  set 
before  the  reader.  Like  the  other  continents,  North 
America  consists  of  a  broad  fold  of  the  earth's  crust, 
only  a  part  of  which  rises  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
As  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  are  in  their  central 
parts  on  the  average  more  than  fifteen  thousand  feet 
deep,  this  great  continental  ridge  ascends  to  the  height 


26  THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

of  nearly  three  miles  before  it  comes  above  the  level  of 
r  the  sea.  In  a  very  ancient  time,  when  this  uprising  fold 
of  the  crust  first  began  to  break  the  surface  of  the 
waters,  it  did  not  appear  as  we  now  behold  it,  in  the 
form  of  a  great  united  land,  but  as  archipelagoes,  or 
groups  of  islands  of  varied  size,  the  greater  part  of 
which  appeared  where  now  lie  the  northern  parts  of  the 
continent. 

So  far  as  we  have  learned,  the  first  of  these  lands, 
which  were  afterwards  to  grow  together  and  form  North 
America,  came  above  the  sea  at  the  beginning  of  what 
is  called  Archaean  time.  We  do  not  know  just  where 
these  islands  were ;  we  can  in  fact  only  prove  that  they 
were  above  the  sea  by  the  fact  that  great  quantities  of 
stony  waste  worn  away  from  them  by  rivers  and  waves 
were  laid  down  on  the  bottom  of  the  ancient  ocean. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  animals  or  plants  which  were 
on  the  land  or  in  the  sea  in  the  Archaean  age.  We  are, 
however,  tolerably  certain  that  living  creatures  abounded, 
for  we  find  in  the  rocks  then  made  a  good  deal  of  lime 
stone,  and  coal-like  matter  known  as  graphite.  It  is 
generally  believed  that  these  beds  of  limestone  were 
formed  by  shell-fish,  corals,  or  other  animals  which 
build  hard  parts  of  lime,  and  dying,  contribute  the  mate 
rial  to  form  limestones  such  as  we  may  find  in  coral 
reefs  or  where  beds  of  oysters  abound.  The  beds  of 
graphite  were  probably  at  one  time  coal  which  has 
been  brought  to  its  present  unburnable  state  through 
the  changes  which  geologic  time  brings  about.  There 
was  probably  an  age  when  these  limestones  and  altered 
coal-beds  contained  distinct  fossils  :  the  slow-going 
changes  which  take  place  in  the  earth's  crust,  such  as 
those  which  make  hard  rocks  out  of  the  mud  of  the 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         27 

ocean  floor,  have  altered  every  bit  of  these  ancient  rocks, 
so  that  the  fossils  have,  like  the  coins  in  the  gold 
smith's  melting-pot,  utterly  disappeared. 

Those  who  have  studied  the  matter  most  carefully 
are  of  the  opinion  that  this  earliest  traceable  beginning 
of  the  continent  took  place  more  than  a  hundred  mil 
lion  years  ago.  It  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  imag 
ine  such  a  duration  of  time ;  we  can  only  write  the 
figures  on  the  page,  but  we  can  obtain  no  idea  whatever 
as  to  their  meaning.  The  most  aged  man  who  ever 
lived  may  have  been  able  to  remember  something  of 
the  events  which  have  happened  in  a  hundred  years. 
A  single  million  years  is  ten  thousand  times  as  long. 
Some  idea  of  this  duration  may  be  had  by  representing 
the  time  by  a  straight  line  such  as  is  afforded  by  a  long 
direct  road.  Calling  the  length  of  a  long  human  life, 
say  a  century,  the  distance  a  man  may  easily  step  at 
one  stride,  which  is  about  three  feet,  he  would  have  to 
take  ten  thousand  such  steps,  and  would  travel  about  six 
miles,  before  he  had  measured  off  a  distance  equivalent 
on  our  scale  to  one  million  years.  He  would  go  near 
six  hundred  miles  before  the  distance  would  be  propor 
tionate  to  the  time  which  has  elapsed  since  the  Archaean 
period. 

At  the  close  of  the  Archaean  time,  and  in  the  begin- 
ting  of  the  ages  commonly  known  as  the  Cambrian,  we 
hfrve  a  clearer  idea  as  to  the  conditions  of  land  and  sea 

id  the  life  the  latter  bore  in  this  part  of  the  world. 

'he  emerged  parts  of  North  America  at  this  time  seem 
to  have  consisted  of  one  or  more  large  islands  in  the 
northeastern  part  of  the  continent  arranged  in  a  some 
what  wedge-shaped  form  like  a  V,  occupying  the  part  of 
the  continent  where  now  lies  Labrador  and  Canada  as 


28         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

far  south  as  near  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  the  region  im 
mediately  north  of  Lake  Superior,  and  east  of  Hudson's 
Sea.  That  great  field  of  inland  waters  was  probably 
then,  as  now,  below  the  ocean  level.  With  the  elevation 
of  this  great  island  or  archipelago  above  the  sea,  the 
northeastern  part  of  the  continent  probably  assumed 
something  like  its  present  shape.  On  the  western  and 
southern  sides,  however,  the  greater  portion  of  its  sur 
face  still  lay  below  the  level  of  the  sea.  Nevertheless, 
on  the  lines  where  now  lie  the  Rocky  Mountains  of  the 
west  and  the  Appalachians  of  the  east,  lines  of  islands, 
some  of  them  probably  as  large  as  Great  Britain,  indi 
cated  where  these  great  mountain  systems  had  already 
begun  to  grow  and  had  elevated  a  portion  of  the  rising 
continent  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Although  the 
continent  was  as  yet  very  incomplete  in  its  outlines,  the 
plan  upon  which  it  was  to  be  built  was  at  least  in  a 
general  way  determined. 

Unlike  the  Archaean  rocks,  these  Cambrian  strata 
contain  numerous  fossils  from  which  we  can  in  a  gen 
eral  way  determine  the  character  of  the  life  which  in 
habited  its  seas.  There  are  a  great  many  different 
species  of  these  forms,  all  of  shapes  entirely  unlike 
those  of  the  present  day  :  there  are  among  them  many 
shell-fish,  mostly  belonging  to  the  group  of  lamp-shells, 
or  brachiopods,  creatures  which  were  more  abundant  in 
later  ages,  but  are  now  rare.  There  were  also  many 
univalve  shells  allied  to  our  c^a-snails,  many  worms 
which  inhabited  shells,  as  well  as  shell-less  forms  which 
moved  freely  over  the  bottom.  There  were  also  jointed 
animals  in  the  same  class  with  our  crabs,  but  very  differ 
ent  from  them,  which  received  the  name  of  trilobites. 
These  creatures  are  particularly  interesting  for  the  rea- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         2Q 

son  that  they  probably  were  the  first  animals  to  possess 
eyes,  and  therefore  the  first  to  behold  the  light  of  those 
ancient  days.  The  seas  of  that  day  contained  no  fishes ; 
in  fact,  the  whole  group  of  back-boned  animals  was  a 
much  later  creation. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  Cambrian  to  the  close  of 
the  Lower  Silurian  time  there  are  no  notable  additions 
to  the  life  of  the  earth,  so  far  as  we  can  determine  from 
the  record  of  the  rocks.  About  the  beginning  of  the 
Upper  Silurian,  or  shortly  before,  we  have  the  first  faint 
signs  of  land  plants  in  traces  of  what  appear  to  be  ferns. 
It  is  probable  that  the  earlier  lands  were  occupied  by  a 
lowly  vegetation  consisting  mainly,  if  not  altogether,  of 
mosses.  In  the  last-named  time  we  have  the  first 
remains  of  animals  which  dwelt  upon  the  land.  These 
come  to  us  in  the  form  of  those  curious  insects  which  are 
known  as  scorpions,  animals  with  bodies  in  general  like 
those  of  the  spiders  with  four  pairs  of  legs  for  walking, 
and  with  a  long,  jointed,  and  hard  abdomen  terminating 
in  a  sting.  The  fact  that  this  creature  has  a  stinging 
apparatus  shows  pretty  clearly  that  there  were  other 
and  stronger  animals  alive  at  the  same  time  on  the 
lands.' 

At  the  close  of  the  Silurian  period  there  appear  at 
once,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  plentiful 
remains  of  certain  species  which  have  a  keen  interest 
for  us,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  belong  to  the  series 
of  back-boned  animals,  and  are  thus  nearer  kin  to  man 
than  any  of  the  creatures  known  in  the  earlier  ages.1 
These  first  vertebrates  are  fishes,  which  occur  in  the 

1  Some  remains  found  in  Lower  Silurian  strata  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  fishes  were  probably  in  existence  during  the 
lowest  Silurian  period. 


3<D  THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

rocks  where  we  first  find  them  in  such  frequent  remains 
that  we  may  be  sure  they  fairly  swarmed  in  those  an 
cient  seas.  Although  much  unlike  the  fishes  of  the 
present  day,  we  note  certain  kinships  between  these 
old-time  forms  and  those  which  now  inhabit  the  waters. 
Some  of  these  are  like  certain  living  forms  of  shark ; 
others  akin  to  the  sturgeons  or  to  the  gar-pikes  of 
North  America. 

It  is  a  peculiarity  of  an  interesting  kind  that  all  these 
early  fishes  have  jaws  armed  with  strong  teeth  fit  for 
attack  and  defence,  while  their  bodies  are  often  pro 
tected  with  amazingly  strong  and  closely  interlocked 
plates  or  scales  of  a  bony  nature.  They  remind  us, 
indeed,  of  the  clumsy  warriors  of  mediaeval  times,  when 
they  were  prepared  for  battle  in  their  suits  of  armor. 

Another  interesting  group  of  animals — a  group  which 
affords  some  of  the  most  picturesque  and  beautiful 
creatures  of  the  sea  —  begins  to  develop  and  rapidly 
take  on  an  amazing  variety  of  form  in  the  Silurian 
periods.  These  creatures,  which  are  akin  to  the  more 
familiar  star-fishes,  had  a  body  shaped  somewhat  like 
the  blossom  of  a  daisy  with  long  arms  where  the  petals 
of  the  flower  stand,  the  mouth  in  the  centre  of  the  arms 
leading  to  a  pear-shaped  calyx  or  body,  the  whole  sup 
ported  on  a  long  and  slender  stem  made  up  of  limestone 
disks- arranged  one  on  top  of  another  like  a  pile  of  coins. 
The  body  and  branched  arms,  as  well  as  the  stem,  were 
composed  of  shapely  hard  bits  which  covered  and  pro 
tected  the  internal  soft  parts.  Between  the  joined  edges 
of  each  of  these  plates  there  was  a  thin  living  mem 
brane  which,  by  .the  circulation  of  the  blood,  brought 
ever-new  supplies  to  the  plates,  so  that  they  increased 
in  size  with  the  constant  growth  of  the  exquisitely  or- 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  31 

ganized  body.  Attached  to  the  sea-bottom  by  strong 
root-like  processes  extending  from  the  base  of  the  stem, 
with  the  body  held  some  feet  above  the  slimy  mud  of 
the  ocean  bottom,  and  the  many  creeping  animals  which 
assail  creatures  prone  upon  its  floor,  with  branched  arms 
which  could  gather  food  from  a  wide  space  of  water, 
these  crinoids  were  singularly  well  fitted  for  life  in  the 
ocean  depth. 

Yet  another  very  interesting  group  of  animals  which 
abounded  in  the  Silurian  time  were  the  great  kindred 
of  the  living  pearly  nautilus  known  by  the  name  of 
orthoceratites,  or  straight-shelled  animals.  Those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  features  of  the  pearly  nautilus  can 
imagine  the  form  of  the  orthoceratites  by  conceiving 
the  shell  of  the  nautilus  unrolled  from  its  coiled  form 
and  made  into  a  very  slender,  tapering  cone.  Some  of 
these  straight-shelled  forms  were  of  gigantic  dimen 
sions.  We  not  infrequently  find  them  having  a  length 
of  three  or  four  feet,  and  a  diameter  at  the  larger  end  of 
five  or  six  inches,  and  fragments  have  been  discovered 
which  must  have  belonged  to  shells  having  a  length  of 
nearly  twenty  feet.  When  young,  these  creatures  dwelt 
in  a  shell  which  had  but  one  chamber ;  as  they  grew  in 
size  and  needed  more  protection,  they  built  on  a  second 
wider  and  longer  cell,  withdrew  their  bodies  from  the 
old  room,  and  sealed  the  space  across,  except  for  a  single 
small  opening.  In  the  course  of  years  they  thus  formed 
many  successive  partitions,  and  the  most  of  their  habi 
tations —  all,  indeed,  but  the  last  chamber  —  were  empty, 
but  served  a  good  purpose  in  buoying  up  the  shell,  which 
otherwise  would,  by  its  great  weight,  have  anchored  the 
animal  to  the  bottom.  In  the  empty  places  it  is  sup 
posed  that  the  animal  secreted  some  gas,  and  that  the 


32          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

shell  was  thus  made  so  relatively  light  that  it  stood 
up  in  the  water  while  the  creature  crawled  along  the 
bottom. 

—X-  From  the  close  of  the  Silurian  through  the  Devonian, 
/  and  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  time  when  the  coal- 
measures  were  deposited,  the  growth  of  the  continent 
was  steadily  advancing.  The  original  islands  were  ris 
ing  higher  from  the  sea,  and  extending  their  shores  so 
as  to  win  more  of  the  shallow  bottom  to  dry  land.  The 
vast  region  of  ocean,  already  in  part  walled  in  by  the 
great  Canadian  or  Laurentian  islands  and  those  of 
the  Appalachians  and  Rocky  Mountain  system,  though 
its  floor  was  subjected  to  various  irregular  movements, 
gradually  became  more  shallow,  j  As  it  became  shoaler 
its  waters  appear  to  have  become  more  fit  for  life,  until 
just  before  the  coal-measures  time  the  animals  of  the 
sea-bottom,  particularly  the  crinoids,  brachiopods,  and 
ancient  corals,  flourished  in  a  marvellously  luxuriant 
way. 

So  abundant  were  they  that  the  lime  deposited  from 
their  skeletons  formed  beds  of  limestone  which  may 
have  a  thickness  of  one  hundred  feet  or  more.  It  is 
owing  to  the  great  thickness  and  purity  of  these  lime 
stones  that  the  under-earth  streams  have  been  able  to 
excavate  in  them  the  great  caverns  of  Kentucky,  South 
ern  Indiana,  and  Southwestern  Virginia. 

During  all  these  earlier  ages  of  the  continent,  from 
the  close  of  the  Cambrian  to  the  Beginning  of  the  coal- 
measures,  the  Mississippi  Sea,  as  we  may  term  the  great 
field  of  waters  now  occupied  by  the  valley  of  that  river, 
was  evidently  the  seat  of  a  great  ocean  current  which 
swept  up  from  the  southward.  This  was  doubtless  the 
same  great  tide  of  waters  from  the  tropics,  to  which  we 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  33 

give  the  name  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  because  it  flows 
through  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  diminished  remnant  of 
the  ancient  Mississippi  Sea.  In  this  olden  day  there 
was  a  wide  path  between  the  Laurentian  land  and  the 
islands  where  now  lie  the  Rocky  Mountains  of  Canada, 
so  that  then  as  now  this  ocean  stream  had  an  open  way 
to  the  Arctic  Sea.  We  find  evidence  that  such  a  current 
existed  in  various  periods,  from  the  presence,  in  the  rocks 
formed  at  the  several  times,  of  coral  reefs,  which,  as  is 
well  known,  can  only  grow  where  a  strong  tide  of  very 
warm  water  flows  against  a  shore.  The  first  of  these 
reefs  to  appear  is  found  in  Kentucky ;  the  position  of 
the  corals  indicates  that  the  warm  current  came  from 
the  southward  during  the  Lower  Silurian  time.  The 
next  succeeding  system  of  reefs  belongs  to  the  Upper 
Silurian  time.  Yet  later  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Devo 
nian,  another  great  reef  was  built,  —  that  which  forms 
the  falls  of  the  Ohio  at  Louisville.  Still  later,  in  the 
sub-carboniferous,  or  cavern  limestone,  we  find  evidence 
that  this  ocean  stream  still  swept  to  the  northward 
through  the  Mississippi  Sea. 

Yet  other  proof  that  the  ancient  Gulf  Stream  flowed 
over  what  is  now  the  central  part  of  the  continent  is 
given  us  by  a  deposit  which  occurs  in  this  valley,  and  is 
known  as  the  Ohio  or  Devonian  black  shale.  This  for 
mation  consists  of  very  thin  layers  largely  made  up  of 
organic  remains,  derived  from  creatures  which  lived 
in  the  water  above  the  bottom  of  the  warm  seas,  which 
occupy  the  central  part  of  such  great  circling  currents 
as  the  Gulf  Stream.  At  present  the  Gulf  Stream  has 
between  the  northward-flowing  current  of  the  American 
shore  and  the  southward-flowing  water  of  the  European 
shore,  a  great  oceanic  area  which  has  near  its  surface 


34          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

a  great  deal  of  sea-weed  which  grows  as  it  floats  in  the 
water.  This  plentiful  vegetation  nourishes  a  great  quan 
tity  of  animal  forms,  whose  remains  are  contributed  to 
the  sea-floor.  It  seems  probable  that  this  Ohio  shale 
was  accumulated  on  the  ocean  floor  beneath  an  ancient 
sargasso,  or  sea-weed  sea.  When  it  was  formed,  the  old 
Gulf  Stream  probably  flowed  between  the  present  site  of 
the  Mississippi  River  and  the  old  islands  which  were 
formed  by  the  growing  Rocky  Mountains. 

When  the  Carboniferous  period  began,  a  great  extent 
of  sea-floors,  which  with  the  uprising  of  the  continent 
through  the  earlier  ages  were  gradually  coming  nearer 
to  the  surface  of  the  water,  finally  arose  above  the  sea, 
so  that  the  several  ancient  islands  and  archipelagoes, 
which  had  in  a  way  prefigured  the  form  of  the  conti 
nent,  were  at  length  united  in  one  great  land.  From 
this  time,  indeed,  we  may  fairly  date  the  beginning  of 
the  continental  history  of  this  country.  It  seems  likely 
that  this  continent  of  the  coal-measures  was  at  least  in 
some  of  the  ages  of  that  enduring  time  almost,  if  not 
quite,  as  extensive  as  it  is  at  the  present  day.  Its  gen 
eral  shape,  also,  was  probably  much  the  same  then  as 
now.  On  the  northeastern  shore  it  probably  extended 
somewhat  farther  into  the  Atlantic  than  at  present ; 
and  on  the  south  what  is  now  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  prob 
ably  covered  the  area  now  occupied  by  the  whole  of 
Florida,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  as  well  as  a  part  of 
Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,^  Alabama,  and  Texas. 
It  is  also  probable  that  the  Pacific  then  occupied  a  con 
siderable  portion  of  the  country  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  from  Mexico  to  the  high  north.  It  is  pos 
sible,  indeed,  that  nearly  all  the  Rocky  Mountain  coun 
try  was  at  this  time  below  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  thus 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         35 

the  continent,  as  a  whole,  lay  somewhat  to  the  eastward 
of  its  present  position. 

Before  we  pass  to  our  brief  study  of  the  coal-measure 
time,  we  must  note  certain  interesting  changes  in  the 
marine  life  of  the  seas  about  the  continent,  which  took 
place  just  before  the  coal-beds  began  to  be  formed  on 
the  newly  emerged  land.  Of  the  many  alterations,  we 
can  notice  but  few.  The  first  of  these  to  be  remarked  is 
the  rapid  disappearance  of  the  great  group  of  trilobites, 
which  had  been  for  so  long  a  most  picturesque  and  im 
portant  group  of  animals  in  those  early  seas.  Gradually, 
after  the  close  of  the  Silurian  time,  these  creatures 
diminish  in  variety,  and  the  remaining  forms  decrease 
in  size,  until  finally,  in  the  sub-carboniferous  limestones, 
they  are  represented  by  small  species  which  speedily 
disappear,  and  so  ends  the  history  of  all  the  kind. 

The  crinoids,  successors  of  the  forms  which  we  have 
already  noted  as  existing  in  the  earlier  ages,  attain  a 
singular  perfection  of  growth  and  number  of  species  as 
well  as  of  individuals  in  the  seas  which  deposited  the 
carboniferous  limestones.  The  most  remarkable  as  well 
as  the  most  numerous  crinoids  of  that  day  were  more 
perfect  structures  than  those  of  earlier  times,  in  that 
they  had  arranged  a  system  by  which  the  excrements  of 
the  body  were  conveyed  to  a  distance  from  the  mouth. 
In  the  earlier  forms,  the  mouth  and  the  further  ex 
tremity  of  the  alimentary  canal  were  very  near  together 
and  at  the  same  height  above  the  sea-bottom.  In  these 
peculiar  carboniferous  crinoids  a  tall,  conical,  chimney- 
like  shaft  was  built  up  to  the  height  of  some  inches  from 
the  mouth,  and  through  this  the  waste  of  digestion  was 
poured  forth  into  the  sea  at  a  point  where  it  would  not 
readily  harm  the  breathing  or  feeding  of  the  creature. 


36         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

Owing,  perhaps,  to  the  advantage  which  this  sewage 
system  gave  these  crinoids,  they  multiplied  exceed 
ingly,  and  attained  such  numbers  that  they  stood,  very 
often,  as  thick  as  the  wheat  stems  in  an  ordinary  field. 
Between  their  close-set  columns  a  great  variety  of 
other  living  forms  flourished  and  contributed  their  limy 
matter  to  the  growing  stratum.  New  crinoids  sprung 
up  in  every  available  interspace,  and  swiftly  took  the 
place  of  those  which  perished.  The  result  is  that  the 
limestones  of  this  time  are  much  more  massive  than 
those  of  most  other  ages  in  which  the  beds  were  com 
monly  formed  of  molluscan  shells,  the  shell-fish  being 
destroyed  by  the  violent  stirring  of  the  mud  on  the  bot 
tom  by  earthquake  shocks  or  sudden  changes  in  the 
marine  currents.  A  large  part  of  the  great  caverns 
of  this  country,  all  those  of  noteworthy  size,  in  Indiana, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee,  as  well  as  those  of  many 
foreign  countries,  are  excavated  in  beds  of  this  age. 
The  great  thickness  of  the  strata  of  these  sub-carbonif 
erous  limestones  is  owing  to  the  habit  of  growth  of  the 
crinoids,'  and  the  majestic  avenues  of  the  caverns  are 
thus  in  a  measure  due  to  the  peculiar  habit  of  growth  of 
these  ancient  "  sea-lilies." 

With  the  close  of  the  sub-carboniferous  period  all 
these  peculiar  proboscis-bearing  crinoids  just  described 
disappear.  Most  of  the  other  simpler  forms  also  pass 
away.  A  few  of  the  principal  groups  only  have  re 
mained  ;  some  of  them  surviving  in  slightly  changed 
shapes  to  the  present  day.  The  cause  of  this  rapid 
destruction  of  creatures,  which  appear  to  have  been 
successful  for  a  long  time  and  over  a  large  part  of  the 
earth's  surface,  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  rapid 
increase  in  the  variety  of  fishes  which  occupied  the 
ocean  at  that  time. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         37 

The  fishes  in  the  sub-carboniferous  seas  were  clearly 
in  great  variety  and  remarkably  provided  with  effective 
jaws.  To  a  great  extent  they  had  abandoned  the  system 
of  plate  and  scale  armor  so  common  in  the  earlier  ages, 
replacing  these  instruments  of  mere  defence  with  those 
which  serve  for  attack.  They  had  stronger  and  more 
serviceable  teeth,  and  their  bodies  seem  to  have  been 
shaped  for  swifter  movement  through  the  waters. 
Among  these  fishes  were  some  forms  which  had  the 
teeth  placed  like  paving-stones  over  the  inside  of  the 
mouth,  covering  the  parts  where  the  tongue  and  roof  of 
the  mouth  lie.  These  animals  appear  to  have  fed  on 
the  crinoids,  the  bodies  of  which  they  could  readily 
crush  in  their  powerful  jaws. 

Yet  another  momentous  change  in  the  character  of 
animal  life  consists  in  the  appearance,  in  these  carbon 
iferous  rocks,  of  certain  animals  belonging  to  the  back 
boned  group,  which  probably  were  developed  from  fishes, 
but  were  much  higher  in  the  scale  of  being.  These  are 
the  earliest  members  of  the  class  to  which  the  frogs  and 
toads,  the  newts,  water-dogs,  and.  salamanders  belong. 
As  is  commonly  known,  these  amphibians  are  born  as 
tadpoles ;  they  have  swimming-tails  like  the  common 
fishes,  but  no  legs;  gills,  but  no  lungs;  thus  they  are 
fitted  for  swimming,  but  not  for  walking,  and  for  breath 
ing  the  air  which  is  dissolved  in  the  water.  They 
do  not,  as  is  the  case  with  land  animals,  even  in  their 
youngest  state,  take  the  air  into  their  lungs.  After  a 
time  of  growth  in  the  tadpole  stage,  these  amphibians 
almost  always  drop  their  tails  and  gills,  and  in  their 
place  develop  limbs  and  lungs,  and  are  thus  fitted  to 
dwell  on  the  dry  land. 

The  gigantic  salamanders  of  the  Carboniferous  period 


38         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

attained  a  greater  size  than  any  of  their  kindred  species 
now  living.  They  appear  to  have  lived  in  fresh  water, 
and  were  probably  nearly  as  large  as  the  alligators  now 
found  in  Florida.  It  is  probable  that  they  were  the 
largest  land  animals  of  the  vertebrate  series  which  at 
this  time  dwelt  upon  the  earth.  There,  may  have  been 
no  others  of  this  group. 

Many  other  important  changes  in  the  character  of  the 
life  took  place  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Carboniferous 
period,  but  we  cannot  pause  to  consider  them.  Another 
feature  of  the  age  demands  attention,  —  the  extensive 
coal-deposits  which  were  then  forme  J, — deposits  not 
only  of  interest  as  showing  the  condition  of  the  conti 
nent  of  that  time,  but  also  because  of  their  effect  upon 
the  history  of  its  civilized  peoples.  This  effect  seems 
destined  to  be  greater  in  the  future  than  it  has  been  in 
the  past. 

THE    COAL-MAKING   TIME    IN    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Although  coal-beds,  or  at  least  layers  of  a  coaly 
nature,  had  been  formed  in  an  imperfect  manner  in  the 
earlier  geologic  ages  and  have  been  formed  in  consid 
erable  abundance  at  various  times  since  the  Carbonif 
erous  period,  that  period  really  deserves  the  name  of  the 
coal-bearing  age  ;  for  more  deposits  of  carbon  were  prob 
ably  buried  in  the  rocks  in  that  period  of  the  earth's 
history  than  in  all  the  other  ages  put  together.  More 
over,  the  coal  formed  in  this  middle  age  of  the  conti 
nent's  history,  owing'  to  its  pure  quality  and  its  wide 
distribution  over  the  surface  of  the  land  and  the  ease 
with  which  it  is  won  by  the  miner,  is  extremely  valuable 
as  a  source  of  heat,  light,  and  mechanical  power.  The 
formation  and  preservation  of  this  valuable  material 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         39 

were  due  to  the  peculiar  conditions  upon  which  the  con 
tinents  entered  at  the  beginning  of  the  Carboniferous 
time.  These  conditions  we  must  now  consider. 

We  have  already  remarked  that  just  before  the  coal- 
making  age  the  slow  upward  growth  of  the  continental 
mass  brought  a  wide  area  of  seas  into  the  state  of  shal 
lows,  and  that  the  last  stage  of  the  elevation  converted 
a  great  area  previously  covered  by  the  oceans  into  dry 
land.  At  first  this  land  was  low ;  much  of  it  which  has 
since  been  upheaved  into  mountains,  was  then  in  a 
condition  of  broad  plains  extending  eastwardly  and  west- 
wardly  from  the  narrow  Blue  Ridge  or  original  moun 
tainous  Appalachian  archipelago.  The  surface  of  this 
land  recently  lifted  from  the  sea  was  probably  equal  in 
area  to  at  least  one-third  of  the  existing  continent.  In 
form,  this  land  probably  resembled  that  now  existing 
in  the  great  sandy  district  of  Eastern  North  and  South 
Carolina,  or  the  plains  which  ascend  from  the  Missis 
sippi  westward  towards  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains.  It  is  probable  that  the  surface  was  not  anything 
like  as  high  above  the  sea  as  the  above-mentioned  dis 
tricts  of  plain  and  prairie. 

For  a  long  time  after  the  elevation  of  these  lowlands 
from  their  condition  of  sea-bottom  they  did  not  become 
what  we  can  properly  term  dry  land.  The  climate  of 
this  period  was  evidently  made  very  moist  by  a  consid 
erable  and  very  constant  rainfall.  This  favored  the 
formation  of  extensive  swamps,  which  appear  to  have 
covered  all  the  low-lying  fields  of  the  continent  with 
a  dense  mass  of  water-loving  vegetation  akin  to  the 
ferns  and  rushes  of  the  present  day. 

While  these  conditions  of  climate  prevailed,  the  sur 
face  of  the  land  was  extremely  unstable ;  again  and 


40         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

again,  to  the  number  of  scores  of  successive  movements, 
it  was  alternately  lowered  a  little  below  the  level  of  the 
sea  or  slightly  lifted  above  its  plane.  We  do  not  know 
whether  these  alterations  were  due  to  actual  uprisings 
and  downsinkings  of  the  solid  part  of  the  continent,  or 
to  swayings  in  the  height  of  the  sea  itself.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  both  sea  and  land  varied  slightly,  though 
frequently,  in  their  height ;  and  so  neither  held  a  fixed 
place  for  any  great  geologic  time.  It  is  to  the  action 
of  these  two  conditions,  the  extreme  humidity  of  the 
climate  and  the  instability  of  the  land  with  reference 
to  the  sea,  that  we  owe  the  formation  and  preservation 
of  the  coal-measures.  The  way  in  which  these  results 
are  brought  about  afford  one  of  the  most  interesting 
features  in  the  geologic  record.  It  is  well  worth  the 
attention  which  we  shall  now  have  to  give  to  it. 

In  endeavoring  to  account  for  any  peculiar  conditions 
in  the  ancient  stages  of  our  world,  it  is  best  first  to 
search  for  facts  which,  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
earth,  are  most  like  those  we  seek  to  explain  in  the  past. 
Let  us  therefore  look  closely  at  the  characteristic  aspects 
of  a  coal-bed,  and  see  what  features  it  presents  which 
need  explanation,  and  then  seek  in  the  work  of  the 
world  in  our  own  day  the  means  of  accounting  for  them. 
In  a  coal-bed  we  perceive  that  we  have  at  the  base  some 
rocks  of  ordinary  character,  such  as  sandstone  or  layers 
of  thinly  bedded  clay ;  next  above  these  a  layer  which 
the  miners  term  a  dirt-bed,  and  which  closely  resembles 
the  soil.  Then  comes  a  layer  of  coal,  which  often  at 
tains  a  thickness  of  from  six  to  twelve  feet,  but  is  rarely 
of  greater  depth.  Above  this  coal  come  again  other 
layers  of  sandstone,  conglomerates,  or  clays.  After  a 
succession  of  these  last-named  layers  we  are  likely  to 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  41 

find  dirt-beds  overlaid  by  coals  and  covered  in  turn  with 
sandstones  or  shales,  and  so  in  succession,  until  there 
are  twenty  or  more  such  series  of  deposits  lying  one 
above  the  other. 

Looking  more  closely  at  the  relations  of  the  coal  to 
the  under-day  or  dirt-bed,  we  readily  perceive  that  this 
deposit  found  beneath  the  coal  was  a  true  soil ;  for  we 
find  it  to  contain  abundant  roots  of  plants  allied  to  the 
tree  ferns,  the  reeds,  rushes,  and  other  plants  now  living. 
The  stems  of  these  we  can  often  trace  upwards  for  a 
considerable  distance  into  the  coal-bed  itself.  A  close 
examination  of  the  coaly  matter  by  the  naked  eye,  and 
with  the  microscope,  shows  us  that  the  whole  of  the 
material  is  commonly  made  up  of  bits  of  plants  partly 
decayed  and  pressed  close  together,  along  with  a  little 
mud  of  the  fine-grained  character  which  settles  in  stag 
nant  pools.  It  is  evident,  in  a  word,  that  coal-deposits 
were  made  from  the  remains  of  vegetable  matter  which 
grew  in  swamps,  and  fell  into  the  water  when  the  plants 
perished.  All  doubt  on  this  point  is  removed  by  the 
fact  that  in  certain  coals  we  frequently  find  the  remains 
of  fishes  associated  with  those  of  various  fresh-water 
plants. 

We  find  that  a  close  likeness  exists  between  these 
beds  of  coal  formed  in  the  ancient  time  and  the  peat 
bogs  which  are  now  accumulating  so  plentifully  in  all 
regions  where  the  climate  is  moist  and  tolerably  cool, 
but  not  so  cold  as  to  prevent  the  growth  of  an  abun 
dant  vegetation,  and  where  the  surface  is  not  too  steep 
to  prevent  the  growth  of  bogs.  All  the  level  low-lying 
lands  of  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  the  northern  shores  of 
Germany,  and  the  Scandinavian  peninsula  were  orig 
inally  covered  by  such  bogs,  though  these  accumulations 


42         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

have  been  to  a  great  extent  cleared  away  to  convert  the 
land  into  tilled  fields.  At  the  present  time  the  climate 
of  North  America  is  prevailingly  too  dry  to  permit  the 
freest  growth  of  peat-bogs.  But  in  the  northeastern 
portion  of  its  area,  and  as  far  south  as  Florida,  and  in 
high  latitudes  west  to  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  we 
find  a  vast  number  of  these  swamps.  Within  the  limit 
of  the  continent  they  are  best  seen  in  Labrador  and 
Newfoundland.  The  bogs  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  how 
ever,  furnish  the  best  means  of  comparing  existing  bogs 
with  those  of  the  coal-measures  time.  Wherever  in 
these  countries  a  natural  or  artificial  pool  of  fresh  water 
is  found,  the  spores  of  certain  mosses  take  root  along 
its  margin,  and  in  the  moist  air  they  soon  form  a  thick 
coating  of  sponge-like  interlacing  stems.  This  sheet 
of  vegetation  rapidly  extends  off  over  the  surface  of 
the  water,  at  first  floating  on  the  surface  ;  but  as  it 
thickens,  gradually  sinking  until  the  mass  rests  upon 
the  bottom.  The  upper  part  of  the  moss  sheet  alone  is 
living ;  the  lower  portion  is  dead.  This  lower  part  does 
not  completely  decay,  as  it  would  if  freely  exposed  to 
the  open  air,  but  is  converted  into  a  blackened  mass  of 
soft  woody  matter  which .  gradually  adheres  together, 
making  a  uniform  deposit  of  a  very  dark  color  known 
as  peat,  and  which  we  may  regard  as  the  first  stage  of 
coal. 

In  moist  air,  such  as  is  found  .in  Scotland  and  Ire 
land,  the  moss  not  only  extends ^out  over  the  water  of 
the  pool  on  the  margins  of  which  it  began  to  grow,  but 
also  climbs  up  the  neighboring  slopes,  provided  they 
be  not  too  steep,' and  extends  as  a  mantle  over  the  sur 
face  of  the  country.  In  these  elevated  situations  the 
moss  is  able  to  grow  by  virtue  of  a  large  amount  of 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  43 

water  which  it  holds  in  exactly  the  manner  in  which 
water  is  retained  in  a  sponge.  Although,  as  on  the 
surface  of  the  lake,  the  lower  part  of  the  moss  dies,  it 
is  kept  from  perfect  decay  by  the  water  with  which  it  is 
surrounded,  so  that  there  also  it  becomes  converted  into 
peat. 

Peat  is  in  fact  very  like  coal  in  most  regards,  except 
its  compactness,  and  we  may  fairly  assume  that  all  coal- 
beds  were  originally  in  the  condition  of  our  bogs.  What 
is  now  firm  material  could  originally  be  cut  by  a  spade 
as  our  peats  can  be.  Peat,  'when  dried  in  the  sun, 
affords  the  poor  fuel,  which  serves  the  country  people 
in  Northern  Europe,  and  it  is  sometimes  still  used  in 
this  country.  The  material  was  brought  into  its  firmer 
shape  in  the  following  way :  after  the  deposit  in  the 
swamp  had  been  formed  in  the  manner  above  described, 
though  through  the  agency  of  other  plants  than  the 
living  mosses,  a  change  in  the  height  of  the  sea  carried 
the  morass  to  some  depth  below  the  level  of  the  water, 
where  in  time  it  became  buried  beneath  layers  of  clay, 
sand,  or,  more  rarely,  limestone.  These  deposits  brought 
a  certain  weight  upon  the  soft  peat,  which  tended  to 
drive  its  particles  more  closely  together,  and  to  squeeze 
out  the  water.  Certain  chemical  processes  generated 
gases  in  the  mass,  which  tended  still  further  to  expel 
the  water  and  to  bring  the  vegetable  matter  nearer  to 
the  state  of  ordinary  bituminous  coal,  that  which  burns 
with  a  free  flame. 

With  the  many  uprisings  and  downsinkings  of  the 
land  which  took  place  in  this  singular  period  of  the 
earth's  history  coal-beds,  all,  indeed,  save  those  latest 
formed,  were  sure  speedily  to  become  deeply  buried, 
and  thus,  by  the  conditions  which  deep  burial  brought 


44         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

about,  to  be  changed  to  firm  coal.  In  certain  cases, 
indeed,  the  alteration  of  the  original  peat  has  gone  so 
far  that  the  material  is  converted  into  anthracite  coal ; 
that  is,  coal  in  which  all  the  material  which  by  heat  can 
be  readily  converted  into  gas  has  been  driven  off.  In 
certain  rare  cases,  indeed,  it  has  been  changed  into  the 
unburnable  form  of  carbon  known  as  graphite,  or  plum 
bago,  a  substance  which  is  used  in  making  lead-pencils 
and  vessels  which  are  destined  to  receive  the  highest 
heat  which  furnaces  can  apply. 

When  the  coal-measures  were  formed,  the  climate  of 
North  America,  as  well  as  of  those  portions  of  the  Old 
World  which  face  the  region  of  the  North  Atlantic,  was 
much  moister  and  had  a  more  equable  temperature  than 
in  the  present  time,  or  perhaps  than  in  any  other  period 
of  the  earth's  history.  We  know  this  by  the  fact  that  the 
delicate  vegetation  which  occupied  those  ancient  swamps 
was  able  to  flourish  up  to  and  within  the  Arctic  circle, 
and  that  plants  of  the  same  nature  also  formed  peat 
bogs  as  far  south  as  Central  Alabama.  Some  geologists 
are  of  the  opinion  that  the  peculiar  climate  of  the  Car 
boniferous  period  was  brought  about  by  the  same  condi 
tions  that  produced  the  glacial  period  which  has  just 
passed  away.  They  think  that  when  the  coal-beds  were 
formed  there  were  alternating  times  when  in  rapid  suc 
cessions, —  that  is  to  say,  quickly  returning,  in  a  geologic 
sense,  —  the  surface  of  the  land  was  occupied  by  a  vast 
glacial  sheet  and  by  far-extending-  morasses ;  when  the 
glaciers  spread  out  from  the  mountainous  elevation, 
bearing  into  the  shallow  seas  great  quantities  of  waste 
worn  from  the  rocks,  the  sandstones  and  pebble  beds 
which  so  often  lie  between  the  coal-deposits  were 
formed.  When  these  ice-sheets  disappeared,  and  the 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  45 

continents,  disburdened  of  their  weight,  rose  above  the 
sea,  its  surface  was  repossessed  by  the  swamp-making 
vegetation,  and  so  by  alternation  of  these  conditions  fre 
quently  repeated  the  beds  of  the  coal-bearing  age  were 
accumulated. 

It  is  not  yet  certain  that  this  was  the  true  condition 
of  climate  in  this  age  of  the  earth's  history,  but  the  facts 
are  better  explained  in  this  than  in  any  other  way. 
Moreover,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
history  of  the  continent  during  the  Glacial  period,  which 
is  the  last  great  event  in  the  earth's  history,  the  charac 
ter  of  the  deposits  much  resembles  those  made  during 
the  Carboniferous  time. 

When  the  coal-measures  were  first  formed,  they  ex 
tended  over  a  great  part  of  the  continent,  from  which 
they  have  since  been  swept  away  by  the  action  of  the 
sea,  the  rivers,  and  of  glacial  ice.  Thus  the  coal-beds  of 
Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Western  Kentucky,  which  are  now 
separated  from  those  of  Ohio,  Tennessee,  and  Eastern 
Kentucky,  by  a  wide  space  occupied  by  Silurian  and 
Devonian  rocks  were  once  united  by  continuous  coal 
fields.  It  is  probable  that  the  area  of  carboniferous 
rocks  was  originally  more  than  twice  as  extensive  as 
it  now  is. 

The  carboniferous  beds  are  overlaid  by  those  of  the 
Permian  age,  which  were  formed  during  a  time  when  the 
climate  was  becoming  dryer,  and  the  swamps  from 
which  the  coal-beds  were  formed  ceased  to  be  devel 
oped,  though  most  of  the  plants  and  animals  continued 
to  live.  In  a  word,  the  Permian  period  marks  a  great 
and  gradual  change  in  the  atmospheric  state  of  this 
part  of  the  world,  a  stable  land  and  a  dry  air  taking 
the  place  of  the  previous  oscillating  land  and  humid 
climate. 


46  THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 


In  the  Carboniferous  age  there  appear  to  have  been 
no  considerable  mountains  built.  The  movements  of 
the  land  were  probably  limited  to  the  frequent  upris 
ings  and  downsinkings  of  the  broad  flat  lands,  which  so 
strikingly  marked  this  continent  during  the  period  when 
the  coal-measures  were  deposited.  In  the  period  imme 
diately  following  the  last  or  Permian  stage  of  the  Car 
boniferous,  commonly  known  as  the  Trias,  we  have 
evidence  of  much  mountain-building.  A  good  deal  of 
the  flat  land  whereon  the  coal-measures  were  laid  down 
was  wrinkled  into  great  mountainous  folds.  All  the 
great  chain  of  the  Alleghanies  lying  to  the  west  of 
the  old  Blue  Ridge,  and  extending  from  near  Albany, 
N.Y.,  to  Alabama,  was  about  this  time  thrown  into 
mountain  folds,  the  higher  summits  of  which  rose  six 
or  eight  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  These  foldings 
took  place  also  in  the  region  to  the  east  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  and  led  to  the  formation  of  mountains  in  Eastern 
New  England  and  in  the  region  about  the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence.  It  is  likely  that  at  the  same  time  a  great 
deal  of  mountain-building  was  done  in  the  Rocky  Moun 
tain  region ;  the  only  extended  portion  of  the  continent, 
indeed,  which  is  not  affected  by  the  wrinkling  move 
ment  of  the  strata  was  the  district  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  that  which  lies  to  the  north  of  it  in  British 
America. 

In  a  small  part  of  the  continent,  viz.  that  which  lies 
in  Eastern  Virginia  and  Middle  North  Carolina,  the  con 
ditions  for  the  formation  of  coal  persisted  during  this 
Triassic  time,  and  in  this  portion  of  the  continent  several 
coal-beds  were  formed.  Elsewhere  the  deposits  con 
sisted  of  heavy  conglomerate  composed  of  large  pebbles 
and  bowlders,  coarse  sandstones,  and  layers  of  sandy 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         47 

shale,  all  evidently  derived  mainly  from  the  waste  of 
the  recently  made  mountainous  land. 

The  changes  in  the  condition  of  sea  and  land  conse 
quent  on  the  alterations  of  the  form  of  the  continent 
which  took  place  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Carbon 
iferous  period  were  very  great.  Nearly  all  the  earlier 
groups  of  genera  and  species  were  destroyed  or  driven 
away  from  this  part  of  the  world.  The  alteration  was, 
as  is  generally  the  case,  greater  in  the  air-breathing 
forms  than  in  those  which  inhabited  the  water.  To  the 
changed  lands  there  came  by  migration  from  some  other 
region  a  host  of  air-breathing  animals  of  great  size, 
somewhat  akin  to  our  frogs  and  salamanders,  but  differ 
ing  from  them  very  much  in  form  and  size.  These 
amphibians  are  best  known  to  us  by  the  very  numerous 
footprints  which  they  have  left  upon  the  sandstones  of 
the  Connecticut  Valley  in  Massachusetts,  prints  which 
they  formed  on  the  old  sea-shore,  and  which  have  been 
preserved  by  being  buried  by  sand  which  was  blown  or 
washed  upon  them.  When  the  quarrymen  lift  the  slabs 
of  stone  from  their  place  in  the  beds,  they  often  find 
them  thickly  covered  with  footprints  which  these  extinct 
creatures  impressed  upon  them.  Often  the  impressions 
are  as  numerous  as  those  made  by  a  flock  of  sea-fowls 
on  the  soft  margin  of  the  existing  coasts. 

At  first  these  footprints  were  supposed  to  have  been 
made  by  birds ;  on  close  study,  however,  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  creatures  were  clearly  not  bird-like.  Al 
though  most  of  the  tracks  were  evidently  made  by  ani 
mals  which  usually  walked  on  two  feet,  we  find  here 
and  there  the  impressions  of  two  smaller  sets  of  toes 
which  they  occasionally  rested  upon  the  ground. 
Moreover,  we  occasionally  find  impressions  of  a  tail 


48          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

where  it  dragged  upon  the  surface  of  the  mud.  Natu 
ralists  have  therefore  concluded  that  these  creatures 
were,  in  most  cases  at  least,  really  quadrupeds,  and 
from  the  study  of  their  skeletons  they  have  determined 
that  they  were  most  likely  animals  which  were  born 
from  the  egg  in  the  tadpole  state,  and  afterwards  in  the 
manner  of  frogs  and  their  kindred  developed  lungs  and 
limbs,  becoming  thus  fitted  for  life  upon  the  dry  land. 
In  size,  these  strange  animals,  of  which  we  know  little, 
save  from  their  footprints,  varied  from  that  of  a  robin  to 
that  of  creatures  much  larger  than  an  ostrich.  Some  of 
the  impressions  made  by  the  feet  have  a  length  of  fif 
teen  inches,  and  from  the  depth  to  which  they  pene 
trated  the  wet  sand  it  seems  likely  that  the  animal 
weighed  several  hundred  pounds.  Besides  the  creatures 
which  made  the  footprints  of  the  Connecticut  Valley, 
and  which  were  probably  more  nearly  akin  to  the  frogs 
than  to  any  other  living  animals,  the  Triassic  period  is 
remarkable  for  the  great  number  of  true  reptiles  more 
or  less  nearly  related  to  the  crocodiles  and  lizards,  and 
which  differ  from  the  amphibians,  in  being  born  with 
limbs  and  lungs,  as  well  as  in  less  important  particulars. 
These  higher  creatures  were  very  plenty  and  of  very 
varied  form.  So  far  as  we  yet  know,  these  were  the 
first  species  in  North  America  belonging  to  the  group 
of  back-boned  animals  which  breathed  the  air  directly  by 
means  of  lungs  from  the  time  when  they  came  forth 
from  the  egg. 

By  far  the  most  interesting  addition  to  the  life  of  the 
continent  which  was  made  during  this  period, ^consists 
of  a  species  which-  belonged  in  that  group  of  suck-giving 
animals  which  bear  their  young  for  a  while  after  birth 
in  a  pouch.  This  little  creature  was  related  to  the 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         49 

opossums  which  still  live  in  North  America,  as  well  as 
to  the  numerous  kindred  of  the  kangaroo  which  dwell  in 
Australia.  It  was  not  larger  than  a  small  domestic  cat, 
and  probably  fed  on  insects  such  as  beetles. 

The  plants  of  the  Trias  differ  less  from  those  of  the 
Carboniferous  age  than  do  the  animals.  Ferns  continue 
to  abound  as  before,  but  it  is  evident  that  the  narrow- 
leaved  trees  akin  to  the  cypresses  and  pines  were  be 
coming  more  abundant. 

It  does  not  seem  likely  that  the  new  forms  of  living 
beings  which  so  plentifully  appear  in  the  Triassic  de 
posits  of  North  America  originated  within  the  limits  of 
the  continent ;  it  is  more  probable  that  they  migrated 
to  this  land  from  other  regions  over  some  bridge  from 
other  countries.  Whence  they  came  we  do  not  know. 

Next  after  the  Triassic  period  come  the  strata  of  the 
Jurassic  age.  It  is  doubtful  if  deposits  of  this  age  exist 
in  any  part  of  North  America  east  of  the  Mississippi 
River  except  along  the  borders  of  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
In  the  Cordilleras,  however,  these  beds  occupy  a  large 
area.  From  them  alone  we  may  judge  as  to  the  charac 
ter  of  the  American  life.  It  seems  likely,  indeed,  that 
the  eastern  half  of  the  continent  was,  during  the  Juras 
sic  period,  much  higher  above  the  sea  than  it  is  at  the 
present  time,  and  that  the  strata  which  were  then  laid 
down  are  now  hidden  beneath  the  ocean  along  the  At 
lantic  coast. 

The  plants  of  the  Jurassic  time  are  but  scantily 
known  in  North  America.  It  seems  likely,  however, 
that  they  differed  in  no  important  way  from  those  of 
the  Triassic  period.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  animals, 
however ;  for  many  groups  of  them  show  great  changes 
and  advances  in  structure.  .  These  are  most  conspicu- 


5O          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

ous  and  important  in  the  groups  of  mollusca  and  in  the 
reptiles.  Though  all  the  life  shows  signs  of  progress, 
the  gain  is  most  conspicuous  in  the  above-named  classes. 

In  the  mollusca  we  find  that  the  cephalopods,  a  group 
which  began  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  earth's  history, 
and  which  long  continued  in  the  form  of  chambered 
shells,  takes  on  in  North  America,  in  the  Jurassic  period, 
an  important  variation  of  form.  This  change,  which 
began  in  Europe  in  the  Triassic  period,  consisted  in  the 
growth  of  the  animal  outside  of  its  shell  in  such  a  man 
ner  that  the  hard  parts,  which  had  hitherto  served  to 
encase  and  protect  the  creature  in  the  manner  of  the 
snail's  covering,  became  an  internal  skeleton  supporting 
the  soft  parts  of  the  body  which  were  now  defended 
from  assault  by  the  vigilance  and  strength  of  the  animal. 
While  its  ancestors,  the  nautilus  and  the  orthoceratite, 
were  slow-moving  creatures  with  little  power  of  attack 
ing  other  forms,  these  Jurassic  cephalopods  were  among 
the  most  active  inhabitants  of  the  sea.  On  their  strong 
arm-like  processes  about  the  head  they  had  hooks  for 
capturing  their  prey ;  their  mouths  were  provided  with 
powerful  beaks  ;  they  swam  with  fins  and  by  squirt 
ing  the  water  through  a  tube  from  the  space  about  their 
gills.  They  had  an  organ  which  secreted  an  ink-like 
substance  which  when  thrown  out  clouded  the  water  so 
that  their  pursuers  could  not  observe  the  direction  of 
their  flight. 

These  creatures  closely  resemble  the  living  squid  and 
cuttle-fishes,  to  which  in  time  they  gave  birth.  The 
squids,  however,  are  much  more  perfect  and  vigorous 
forms.  They  are,  indeed,  among  the  most  masterful 
creatures  of  the  waters  at  the  present  day. 

The  greatest  changes  in  the  living  beings  of  the  Ju- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.          5 1 

rassic  period  occurred  in  the  group  of  reptiles.  These 
were  far  more  varied  and  of  higher  forms  than  their 
kindred  of  the  Triassic  age.  Among  them  we  find  a 
number  of  gigantic  species,  one  of  which,  the  Atlanto- 
saurus,  was  nearly  a  hundred  feet  in  length;  It  must 
have  been  nearly  as  large  as  the  greater  whales.  Others, 
known  as  Pterodactyls,  were  provided  with  wings  much 
like  those  of  bats,  and  were  as  well  fitted  for  flight  as 
any  of  our  birds.  Some  of  these  were  of  great  size, 
measuring  twenty  feet  or  more  between  the  tips  of  the 
extended  wings. 

It  is  doubtless  in  this  time  in  North  America,  as  in 
Europe,  that  the  birds  began  to  develop  from  the  rep 
tiles  ;  some  of  the  fossils  which  have  been  found  in  the 
Cordilleran  region  appear  to  indicate  this  beautiful 
change  which  gave  us  the  most  charming  of  all  the 
lower  animals. 

The  mammals,  or  suck-giving  creatures,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  appeared  in  the  Triassic  time,  become  more 
abundant  in  the  Jurassic  period.  There  are  a  number 
of  different  kinds,  but,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  their 
teeth,  they  were  still  limited  for  diet  to  insects,  and 
were  all  of  the  pouch-bearing  group.  It  was  only  in  a 
later  day  that  these  creatures  of  the  mammalian  series 
acquired  the  habits  of  eating  vegetables  or  of  preying 
on  the  larger  animals. 

The  great  section  of  the  earth's  history  known  as  the 
Mesozoic,  or  middle-life,  time  was  closed  by  a  period 
known  as  the  Cretaceous.  Like  the  most  of  the  other 
names  for  the  geological  formations,  this  term  was  first 
applied  to  the  rocks  succeeding  the  Jurassic  by  Euro 
pean  students,  particularly  those  of  England.  In  the 
latter  country  the  most  important  deposits  of  this  age 


52         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

are  those  of  fine,  soft  limestone,  or  chalk,  such  as  is 
used  on  blackboards.  Therefore  the  rocks  of  this  age 
received  the  name  of  Cretaceous,  which  comes  from  the 
Latin  word  meaning  chalk.  It  is  supposed  that  the 
chalk  was  'deposited  in  what  was  then  a  tolerably  deep 
sea,  the  waters  of  which  swarmed  with  small  creatures 
of  the  lowest  animal  organization  known  as  foraminif- 
era.  A  somewhat  similar  deposit  is  now  making  on  the 
deep-sea  floor  of  the  North  Atlantic.  There  are  no 
chalk-beds  known  in  North  America,  the  deposits  of 
Cretaceous  age  consisting  mainly  of  sandstones  and 
clays,  containing  only  a  moderate  amount  of  lime. 
These  deposits  occupy  an  extensive  area  in  North 
America,  extending  from  Southern  Massachusetts 
through  New  Jersey  as  a  narrow  broken  fringe,  occupy 
ing  a  large  field  in  the  states  which  lie  just  north  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  a  great  part  of  the  Cordilleran 
region  and  the  Pacific  border. 

The  beds  of  Cretaceous  age  in  North  America  are 
very  thick,  being  in  some  parts  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
seven  or  eight  thousand  feet  in  depth.  We  thus  see 
that  a  large  part  of  the  'continent,  probably  nearly  one- 
fourth  of  its  whole  surface,  was  below  the  level  of  the 
sea,  and  that  in  places  it  remained  long  submerged.  It 
seems  likely  that  during  this  time  North  America  was 
much  smaller  than  it  is  at  present,  or  had  been  at  any 
time  after  the  close  of  the  Carboniferous  period. 

The  greatest  change  which  took  place  in  the  living 
beings  of  North  America  in  this  age  is  exhibited  in  the 
plants  which  appear  in  the  uppermost  Cretaceous ;  for 
in  addition  to  the  great  groups  of  lowlier  forms  devel 
oped  in  the  earlier  ages,  we  now  find  in  the  uppermost 
beds  of  this  age  trees  related  to  the  ordinary  broad- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         53 

leaved  forms  of  our  forests,  such  as  oaks  and  maples, 
as  well  as  many  of  our  plants  which  bear  edible  fruit. 
The  palms,  also,  are  first  known  in  this  age ;  in  fact,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  continent  its  surface 
was  occupied  by  woods  which  would  have  looked  famil 
iar  to  men  of  the  temperate  regions. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  additions  to  the  animal 
life  of  North  America  appears  to  have  consisted  in 
the  introduction  of  feathered  animals,  creatures  which, 
though  distinctly  bird-like,  differed  from  ordinary  birds 
in  that  they  had  very  long  jaw-bones  armed  with  pointed 
teeth.  Some  of  these  birds  were  of  very  great  size : 
one  of  them,  a  water-bird  not  unlike  a  loon,  was,  when 
standing,  five  or  six  feet  in  height.  Although  the  most 
of  these  Cretaceous  birds  have  teeth,  we  can  see  that 
these  parts  are  in  process  of  disappearing.  In  certain 
forms  they  have  ceased  to  grow  in  the  front  part  of  the 
jaw ;  in  yet  other  kinds  they  have  entirely  disappeared, 
and  in  their  place  we  have  the  ordinary  beaks ;  and  with 
this  latter  change  all  conspicuous  marks  of  the  relation 
of  the  feathered  creatures  to  the  reptiles  are  lost. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  change  in  the  life  of  this 
as  well  as  of  the  other  continents  consists  in  the  nearly 
universal  destruction  of  the  great  reptiles  which,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  Triassic  period  down  to  the  close 
of  the  Cretaceous,  occupied  the  sea  and  land.  There 
had  been  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  species  of  these 
reptilian  forms  during  the  Mesozoic  time.  From  their 
great  abundance,  this  portion  of  the  earth's  history  has 
been  well  termed  the  age  of  reptiles.  Before  the  end 
of  the  Cretaceous  we  note  that  these  great  beasts  of 
strange  aspect  are  diminishing  in  the  number  of  their 
kinds,  and  at  the  close  of  that  period  they  nearly  all 
disappear. 


54  THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Another  group,  the  cephalopods,  the  kindred  of  the 
pearly  nautilus  and  the  squid,  also  loses  some  of  its 
ancient  and  interesting  representatives  in  this  time. 
The  chambered  shells,  which  began  in  the  Silurian 
period,  and  finally  gave  birth  to  the  beautiful  series 
of  the  ammonites,  almost  vanish  from  the  seas  at  this 
time.  The  end  of  the  Cretaceous  sees  the  last  of  the 
ammonites  ;  and  only  one  important  chambered  form, 
the  nautilus,  remained. 

The  cause  of  these  great  changes,  and  many  others 
which  cannot  here  be  detailed,  which  took  place  near 
the  close  of  the  Cretaceous  period,  has  not  yet  been 
determined.  It  does  not  appear  to  be  due  to  any  great 
alteration  of  climate  such  as  might  have  destroyed 
the  animals  and  plants,  but  rather  to  the  spontaneous 
death  of  these  creatures  as  their  places  were  taken  by 
other  and  more  advanced  forms.  They  appear  to  have 
died  as  human  beings  die  of  old  age,  the  species  dis 
appearing  from  the  earth  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
individual  being. 

During  the  Cretaceous  period,  as  well  as  during  the 
most  of  the  earlier  ages,  the  continent  of  "North  America 
appears  to  have  been  divided  by  a  long  arm  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  extending  from  the  tropics  to  the  Arctic 
sea,  so  that  on  the  west  was  the  great  though  narrow 
island  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  on  the  east  the 
more  extensive  land  composed  of  the  Appalachian  and 
Laurentian  islands  and  the  districts  of  the  Ohio  and 
upper  Missouri  valleys.  All  the  lowlands  from  Massa 
chusetts  to  the  Rio  Grande,  including  the  whole  of 
Florida,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  were  beneath  the 
sea-level,  as  was"  also  the  greater  part  of  Texas  and 
Alabama. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         55 

The  climate  of  North  America  during  this,  stage  of 
its  development  was  probably  in  the  main  warm  and 
equable.  This  is  shown  by  the  abundance  of  great 
reptiles  in  regions  which  are  now  subjected  to  very  cold 
winters.  The  greater  part  of  these  beasts  were  prob 
ably,  like  their  living  kindred,  cold-blooded,  and  there 
fore  unable  to  maintain  themselves  on  the  surface  of 
the  earth  in  freezing  weather.  We  easily  see  that  they 
could  not,  in  the  manner  of  our  living  snakes  and  lizards, 
have  found  refuge  from  the  cold  by  creeping  into  holes 
in  the  earth.  It  would  have  required  a  Mammoth  Cave 
to  have  afforded  refuge  for  the  larger  species,  and  all 
the  caverns  would  not  have  served  as  sufficient  housing 
for  them. 

That  the  climate  of  this  time  was  moist  is  indicated 
by  the  occasional  occurrence  of  coal-beds,  at  least  in 
the  western  part  of  the  continent.  The  plants  in  gen 
eral  evidently  grew  in  a  luxuriant  manner,  and  many  of 
the  greater  reptiles  doubtless  fed  upon  them.  In  the 
swamps  of  this  time  many  of  the  reptiles,  especially 
the  great  turtles,  probably  dwelt.  One  species  of  the 
latter  group,  the  remains  of  which  have  been  found  in 
Kansas,  was  of  enormous  size,  the  distance  from  tip  to 
»  tip  of  fore-limbs  exceeding  fifteen  feet. 
y  Following  the  Cretaceous  period  comes  the  last  great 
''division  of  the  earth's  history,  that  known  as  the  Ter 
tiary.  There  appears  to  have  been  no  great  development 
of  mountains  in  this  time  of  change,  but  the  continent 
underwent  a  general  uplift  which  brought  it  nearly  to 
the  present  form.  It  is  probable  that  the  great  strait 
connecting  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  with  the  Arctic  Ocean 
was  closed  at  this  time,  so  that  the  Arctic  regions  and 
the  adjacent  northern  portions  of  the  continent  became 


56         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

colder  than  they  had  hitherto  been.  Most  of  the  low. 
land  districts  of  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  border,  and  of 
the  belt  of  country  along  the  Pacific  coast  which  had 
been  below  the  sea  during  the  Cretaceous  period,  still 
remained  in  the  possession  of  the  ocean ;  but  the  water 
which  covered  them  probably  was  shallower  than  before. 
The  greatest  change  which  occurred  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Tertiary  period  consisted  in  the  introduction  of 
many  forms  of  animals  and  plants  of  higher  organization 
than  any  which  had  lived  before.  Most  noteworthy  of 
these  new  groups  of  animals  are  the  higher  of  the 
placental  mammals.  As  we  have  seen  before,  there 
were  in  the  long  ages  of  the  reptilian  time  a  number  of 
species  of  marsupials  living  on  this  continent.  These 
were  suck-giving  animals  which  were  born  in  a  very 
immature  state,  and  had  for  a  long  time  to  remain  con 
tinuously  attached  to  the  nipple  of  the  mother,  where 
they  were  protected  by  the  curious  pouch.  The  result 
of  this  arrangement  was,  and  it  remains  a  characteristic 
of  the  living  pouched  mammals  as  well,  that  all  the 
species  are  of  rather  small  size,  few  of  them  weighing 
over  a  hundred  pounds.  Moreover,  they  seem  inca 
pable  of  making  any  of  the  variations  of  form  which 
enable  the  higher  mammals  to  live  under  great  variety 
of  conditions.  None  of*  the  pouch-bearers  live  in  the 
water,  as  our  whales,  or  are  even  amphibious,  as  are 
the  seals,  the  otters,  and  a  host  of  other  familiar  ani 
mals.  None  of  them  have  hoofs  or  horns  like  those  of 
our  bulls  or  horses  ;  none  of  them  can  fly  as  the  bats ; 
none  burrow  under  ground  in  the  manner  of  the  moles ; 
none  of  them  can'  stand  a  strenuous  winter,  as  do  many 
of  the  well-known  beasts  of  this  continent.  As  a  whole, 
the  pouch-bearers  are  small,  feeble,  weak-witted  crea- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         57 

tures  ;  and  we  are  not  surprised  that  for  ages  they  made 
no  head  against  the  reptiles  of  the  Jurassic  and  Creta 
ceous  times. 

The  higher  non-pouched  mammals  begin  their  life 
within  the  mother  in  a  different  way  from  the  marsu 
pials.  In  the  kindred  of  the  opossum  and  kangaroo,  the 
young,  when  it  escapes  from  the  egg,  forms  no  attach 
ment  to  the  mother's  body.  In  the  higher  mammals 
a  union  between  the  unborn  creature  and  the  mother  is 
created  by  means  of  a  structure  called  the  placenta, 
which  comes  away  when  the  infant  is  born.  Through 
this  placenta  the  mother's  blood  nourishes  the  young 
creature  in  such  a  manner  that  it  is  generally  born,  not 
in  the  immature  state  which  it  has  in  the  marsupials, 
but  so  far  developed  that  it  can  quickly  care  for  itself. 
It  often  can  follow  the  mother  about  in  the  manner  of 
calves  and  colts,  and  does  not  have  to  be  carried  by  the 
parent,  as  is  the  case  with  the  pouched  animals. 

Owing  probably  to  the  more  rapid  and  perfect  devel 
opment  of  the  true  mammals  in  the  earlier  part  of  their 
independent  life,  they  attain  to  much  greater  vigor 
than  their  lower  kindred  ;  their  forms  vary  to  suit 
almost  every  condition  which  the  earth  affords  ;  they  are 
swift  runners,  strong  flyers,  alert  swimmers,  effective 
delvers  in  the  earth  ;  they  afford  great  beasts  of  prey, 
such  as  the  lions  and  tigers,  and  quick-footed  forms  like 
the  antelopes,  which  are  able  to  escape  any  pursuers. 
Their  brains  are  larger  and  their  intellects  more  able 
than  all  the  lower  mammalia  which  have  no  placenta. 
Step  by  step  we  find  the  measure  of  intelligence  increas 
ing,  the  animals  ever  helping  themselves  more  and  more 
by  instinct  and  reason,  until  in  man  we  have  the  great 
dominating  intelligence  of  the  world,  a  creature  who  de- 


58         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

pends  vastly  more  on  his  mental  powers  than  upon  all 
the  physical  gifts  which  have  been  afforded  him.  The 
earliest  of  the  higher  mammals  appear  to  have  been 
creatures  of  much  more  simple  structure  than  those  of 
the  present  day.  Like  their  predecessors,  also,  probably 
their  ancestors,  the  reptiles,  they  had  five  toes  on  each 
foot,  and  were  fitted  for  walking  over  the  earth  or  for 
tree-climbing.  By  gradual  changes  from  this  rather 
simple  creature,  probably  more  nearly  akin  to  the  sloth 
than  to  any  other  living  form,  the  placental  mammals 
varied  along  many  different  lines  of  change.  One  group 
of  these  five-fingered  creatures,  that  which  finally  gave 
us  the  horse  and  its  kindred,  which  now  has  but  one  toe 
or  finger  to  each  foot,  appears  to  have  undergone  its 
development  in  North  America,  principally  in  the  region 
about  the  head-waters  of  the  Missouri,  in  the  district 
known  as  the  Bad  Lands. 

From  the  numerous  and  beautifully  preserved  fossils 
which  have  been  gathered  in  that  district,  all  the  impor 
tant  steps  of  this  change  from  a  five-toed  to  a  single- 
toed  animal  have  been  traced.  In  the  early  Tertiaries  we 
have  the  Orohippus,  where  the  fore-limbs  had  four  toes, 
and  the  hinder,  three.  In  the  next  stage,  in  the  Miocene, 
the  fourth  toe  ceases  to  have  any  hoof,  and  does  not  pro 
ject  beyond  the  skin ;  the  central  hoof,  or  that  on  the 
middle  toe  of  both  front  and  hind  legs,  becoming  much 
larger  than  the  others.  In  the  third  step  the  side  toes 
fade  away,  until  they  lose  the  semblance  of  hoofs,  the 
remaining  toe  growing  yet  larger  than  before  ;  and  final 
ly,  in  modern  times,  there  is  but  one  evident  hoof,  the 
others  being  reduced  to  the  slender  splint-bones  of  the 
horse,  which  serve  no  purpose  whatever  save  to  show  us 
how  the  creature  has  changed  from  the  conditions  of 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         59 

his  ancestors.  The  single  hoof  of  the  horse  is  a  great 
advantage  to  the  creature,  as  it  provides  him  with  a 
stronger  limb  by  which  he  is  enabled  to  escape  pursuit. 
Moreover,  as  all  know,  this  solid  bony  hoof  is  a  power 
ful  instrument  of  defence.  A  few  years  ago,  in  an 
American  Zoological  Garden,  a  lioness  escaping  from 
her  cage  pounced  upon  a  donkey  and  was  killed  by  the 
blows  of  the  animal's  feet. 

We  may  note,  also,  in  this  horse  series,  the  admirable 
development  which  takes  place  in  the  teeth,  step  by 
step,  with  the  advance  in  the  structure  of  the  feet.  The 
earliest  of  the  horse  kindred  had  low,  flat  teeth,  with 
short  roots  of  a  shape  calculated  to  wear  out  and  be 
come  useless  to  the  animal  in  a  short  time.  Gradually 
the  teeth  become  longer  from  the  grinding  surface  to  the 
end  of  the  roots :  the  part  exposed  beyond  the  gums 
extended  so  far  that  they  would  endure  the  rough  work 
of  grinding  hard  and  sandy  grasses  for  a  much  greater 
period  than  any  of  the  earlier  forms. 

Though  the  horse  appears  to  have  been  developed  on 
the  continent  of  North  America,  it  is  a  curious  fact 
that  none  of  these  creatures  existed  on  this  continent 
or  in  the  neighboring  land  of  South  America  when  man 
came  to  occupy  this  part  of  the  world.  From  North 
America,  they  appear  to  have  migrated  over  some  tem 
porary  isthmus  which  for  a  time  connected  the  Old 
World  with  the  New.  This  complete  disappearance  of 
an  important  group  of  animals  from  the  region  where 
they  were  developed  seems  to  indicate  that  some 
destructive  accident  befell  them.  It  is  not  necessary, 
however,  to  suppose  that  the  cause  of  the  destruction 
of  the  horse  on  this  continent  is  to  be  found  in  any 
change  of  climate  or  in  the  subsidence  of  the  land 


6O          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

beneath  the  sea.  It  may  have  been  due  to  the  ravages 
of  some  insect  which  killed  these  creatures  as  a  certain 
fly  destroys  all  the  horses  in  a  portion  of  Southern 
Africa. 

The  most  notable  change  in  the  animal  life  of  the 
Tertiary  period,  both  on  this  and  other  continents,  con 
sists  in  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  insects. 
These  creatures  had  evidently  existed  from  very  early 
times,  some  of  their  remains  being  found  as  early  as 
the  Devonian  period,  and  specimens  of  a  scorpion  have 
been  discovered  in  Silurian  strata ;  but  in  the  Tertiary 
time  these  animals  rapidly  became  more  numerous  and 
varied  in  their  kind.  The  increase  is  particularly  notice 
able  in  those  forms  of  insect  life  which  seek  honey  or 
pollen  from  the  blossoms  of  flowering  plants,  as  do  the 
bees  and  butterflies.  The  bees  and  their  kindred  the 
common  ants  are  the  most  intellectual  of  insects ;  ex 
cept  perhaps  the  white  ants,  they  are  the  only  members 
of  this  group  which  have  learned  how  to  associate  their 
labor  in  well-organized  communities  which  build  perma 
nent  habitations  for  their  societies. 

The  plants  of  the  Tertiary  time  on  this  and  other 
continents  steadily  increase  in  the  number  of  their 
, flowering  forms.  As  compared  with  the  earlier  forests 
and  fields,  the  plants  of  this  age  are  conspicuous  for 
their  blossoms,  fruits,  and  nuts.  The  fact  is,  that  in 
the  Tertiary  time  the  vegetables  have  varied  in  order 
to  secure  the  help  of  insects,  birds",  and  mammals  in  the 
fertilization  of  their  flowers  and  the  diffusion  of  their 
seeds.  The  bright  colors,  sweet  odors,  and  nourishing 
fruits  which  they  have  developed  in  these  latter  geo 
logical  ages  served  to  secure  these  ends.  The  insects 
resorting  to  them  for  honey  or  pollen  serve  to  cross- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         6l 

fertilize  the  seed.  The  fruits,  because  they  are  pala 
table  or  nutritious,  are  eaten  by  many  animals,  and  the 
strong  seeds,  not  being  digested  in  the  stomach  of  the 
animal,  are  scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  field.  Yet 
other  plants  have  their  seed  provided  with  booklets 
which  may  catch  in  the  hair  of  animals  as  they  pass  by 
the  plant,  and  thus  be  carried  to  great  distances,  giving 
the  species  a  chance  to  win  its  way  over  the  land. 

In  these  and  many  other  ways  the  animal  and  plant 
life  in  the  Tertiary  ages  became  more  closely  knit  to 
gether  than  they  had  been  in  the  earlier  times.  Much 
of  the  rapid  variation  and  advance  in  the  structure  of 
both  these  great  realms  of  life  came  about  through  this 
advance  in  the  accommodation  of  animals  and  plants 
to  each  other.  The  plants  changed  their  form  to  secure 
the  assistance  of  certain  animals,  and  to  protect  them 
selves  from  the  assaults  of  others,  and  the  animals 
varied  so  as  to  obtain  ever  greater  advantages  from 
the  vegetables  on  which  they  mainly  fed.  In  this  way, 
contending  against  and  helping  each  other,  and  ever 
varying  to  accomplish  these  ends,  these  two  great 
armies  of  living  beings  have  undergone  vast  changes, 
and  have  secured  great  advances  in  structure  since  the 
beginning  of  the  Tertiary  time. 

The  student  should  understand  that  the  precise  way 
in  which  these  variations  are  brought  about  is  still  a 
matter  of  debate.  By  far  the  greater  number  of  natu 
ralists  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  change  from  one 
species  to  another  in  the  progressive  alteration  of  ani 
mals  and  plants  in  the  course  of  the  earth's  history  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  descendants  of  any  individual 
are  very  numerous,  —  often  to  be  counted  by  thousands, 
—  and -of  this  multitude  only  one  or  two  can  commonly 


62         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

come  to  maturity,  the  others  perishing  from  lack  of  food 
or  being  devoured  by  their  enemies.  Those  which  sur 
vive  are  enabled  to  do  so  because  they  vary  from  the 
others  in  some  advantageous  way,  as,  for  instance,  by 
having  more  vigorous  seeds,  being  swifter  in  flight  and 
chase,  or  with  keener  intelligence.  These  advantages 
the  fortunate  parent  is  apt  to  hand  on  to  its  descendants, 
and  so  in  a  given  country  a  somewhat  peculiar  variety 
is  formed  which  has  an  advantage  over  its  kindred  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  The  individuals  which  have 
this  advantage  breeding  together,  make  the  beneficial 
peculiarity  yet  more  marked  than  it  was  before,  and  so 
from  generation  to  generation  the  change  becomes  inten 
sified.  This,  in  very  brief  statement,  is  the  Darwinian 
theory,  and  it  seems  likely  that  it  explains  many  of  the 
changes  which,  in  the  course  of  the  ages,  living  forms 
have  undergone.  Whatever  be  the  final  determination 
as  to  the  value  of  Mr.  Darwin's  view,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  as  to  the  steadfast  progress  of  organic  life  through 
the  geologic  ages,  each  species  in  turn  perishing,  in  most 
cases,  after  it  had  given  birth  through  some  process  of 
change  to  a  form  better  fitted  for  the  conditions  of 
existence  in  the  region  in  which  its  ancestors  lived. 

Although  the  bodily  forms  of  animals  gained  im 
mensely  in  effectiveness  during  the  Tertiary  age,  the 
greatest  advance  in  this  higher  life  is  found  in  the  addi 
tion  to  the  intellectual  power  of  its  species.  The  brains 
grow  larger  in  all  the  mammalia"  as  we  go  from  the 
earlier  to  the  later  stages  of  this  time ;  the  intelligence 
increases  with  the  development  of  the  machinery  which 
serves  its  needs  ;  'the  creatures  develop  habits  of  life 
which  are  controlled  by  instincts  or  reason  ;  beavers 
build  their  dams  ;  squirrels,  birds,  and  mice,  their  nests  ; 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         63 

the  larger  animals  in  the  fields  institute  the  method  of 
life  by  herds,  where  the  individuals  protect  and  defend 
each  other ;  in  a  word,  in  this  later  age  mind  comes  to 
play  a  part  unknown  in  the  earlier  times  and  lower 
states  of  being. 

One  of  the  effects  arising  from  the  increase  in  the 
measure  of  intelligence  in  these  later  stages  in  the 
earth's  history  is  found  in  the  greater  sympathy  which 
exists  in  the  more  highly  organized  beings.  If  we  could 
have  observed  the  earth  during  the  reptilian  period,  we 
should  doubtless  have  found  that  there  were  no  animal 
sounds  in  the  woods  or  fields  save,  perhaps,  the  chirping 
of  creatures  like  the  crickets  and  grasshoppers  or  the 
piping  of  some  creatures  allied  to  our  frogs  and  toads. 
The  song  of  birds,  the  hum  of  bees,  the  lowings  and  bel- 
lowings  and  chatterings  of  our  mammalian  species,  were 
probably  wanting.  All  these  sounds,  like  the  speech  of 
man,  indicate  that  the  higher  animals  are  becoming  more 
conscious  of  and  dependent  on  their  kindred.  Thus  all 
the  more  advanced  life  exhibits  the  progressive  gain  in 
sympathy  between  individuals  which  is  the  basis  of 
human  relations. 

By  no  means  all  the  changes  which  took  place  in  the 
animal  life  of  North  America  and  other  great  lands 
during  the  Tertiary  period  led  to  the  elevation  of  that 
life.  Many  forms,  in  order  to  secure  the  means  of  sub 
sistence  or  protection  from  their  enemies,  underwent 
changes  which  led  to  their  degradation.  The  most 
conspicuous  instance  of  such  downgoing  is  exhibited  by 
the  serpents.  The  ancestors  of  these  forms  were  origi 
nally  four-limbed  animals  like  the  lizards  ;  but  in  order 
to  secure  the  peculiar  advantages  which  the  snake's 
form  affords  for  constricting  the  prey  and  seizing  it  at 


64         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

a  stroke,  the  form  became  altered  so  as  to  give  the  body 
great  length  and  flexibility ;  the  limbs  were  lost,  and  in 
their  place  motion  was  effected  by  movable  scales  and 
the  waving  flectures  of  the  body.  So,  too,  the  whales 
have  been  formed  by  progressive  degradation  from  four- 
limbed  animals  which  dwelt  upon  the  land.  In  fact,  all 
changes  of  species  probably  serve  to  fit  the  creature  to 
accomplish  particular  deeds.  Sometimes  it  is  advan 
tageous  for  an  animal  or  plant  to  inhabit  a  peculiar  sta 
tion  or  to  do  certain  acts  which  require  a  less  highly 
organized  body  than  was  possessed  by  its  ancestors.  It 
remains,  however,  a  great  and  most  important  truth  that 
these  changes  generally  lead  to  more  perfect  states  of 
being.  Not  only  is  it  true,  but  a  yet  greater  truth  re 
mains  to  be  stated  concerning  the  development  of  ani 
mals.  This  is,  that  the  speed  with  which  the  advance 
takes  place  is  in  ever-increasing  measure.  Thus  during 
the  Tertiary  age,  which  includes  the  time  in  which  we 
now  dwell,  animal  life  has  made  greater  advances  in  all 
that  regards  the  development  of  intelligence  than  were 
accomplished  in  all  the  long  ages  of  the  earlier  times.  It 
is  certain  that  the  Tertiary  periods  do  not  include  one- 
tenth,  and  they  possibly  do  not  amount  to  one-fiftieth,  of 
the  duration  which  we  must  assign  to  the  preceding  ages, 
and  yet  they  have  carried  forward  the  process  of  growth 
in  the  most  important  features  of  animal  life  to  an  extent 
vastly  greater  than  had  been  secured  before.  We  thus 
see  that  this  continent,  as  indeed  are  all  the  fields  of  the 
earth,  is  still  fresh  and  vigorous,  better  suited  than  ever 
before  to  give  nurture  to  its  living  tenants. 

Near  the  close  of  the  Tertiary  period,  or  rather,  we 
should  say,  in  a  recent  geologic  time,  though  it  may 
have  been  a  hundred  thousand  years  ago,  the  continent 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         65 

of  North  America  experienced  a  wonderful  change  in 
its  physical  conditions.  At  this  time  it  had  a  form 
which  probably  did  not  vary  much  from  that  which  it  at 
present  exhibits.  It  is  probable  that  if  we  could  com 
pare  a  map  of  the  continent  made  at  the  time  we  are 
considering  with  one  which  shows  its  present  geography, 
we  should  perceive  only  slight  differences  in  the  out 
lines  of  the  shore  and  in  the  shape  of  the  interior  regions. 
At  this  time,  however,  there  came  upon  the  land  in  its 
northern  part  a  vast  coating  of  ice  which  occupied 
nearly  all  the  present  land-surface  of  British  America,  a 
large  part  of  Alaska,  and  about  one-third  of  the  area  of 
the  United  States.  This  glacial  envelope  was  not  pecu 
liar  to  North  America ;  for  it  formed  at  the  same  time 
over  nearly  all  the  British  Islands,  Scandinavia,  Switzer 
land,  and  perhaps  Siberia.  Similar  great  ice-fields  were 
probably  simultaneously  developed  in  the  southern  part 
of  South  America  and  in  New  Zealand. 

Just  before  this  great  glacial  change  came  upon  North 
America  there  was  a  warm  climate,  one  which  permitted 
the  development  of  plants  which  cannot  withstand  vig 
orous  winters,  as  far  north  as  the  middle  portion  of 
Greenland,  a  region  now  so  cold  that  only  a  few  plants 
of  the  hardiest  sort  can  maintain  a  scanty  growth.  When 
the  ice-fields  began  to  extend  from  the  regions  about  the 
poles  southward,  and  from  the  colder  mountain  tops  to 
the  plains,  all  the  animals  and  plants  which  had  occupied 
the  northern  realm  were  forced  to  change  their  abodes 
to  more  southern  lands  or  to  perish  from  the  earth.  It 
is  probable  that  many  thousand  years  were  occupied  in 
this  migration  ;  for  the  ice  must  have  won  its  way  slowly 
to  the  possession  of  the  great  field  it  came  to  occupy, 
so  that  time  was  allowed  for  the  species  gradually  to 


66         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

extend  south  of  the  field  from  which  they  had  been  dis 
possessed.  In  this  great  exodus  of  animals  and  plants 
a  good  many  kinds  perished,  and  of  those  which  survived 
a  great  number  underwent  changes  in  their  shapes.  It 
is  a  surprising  fact,  however,  that  as  a  whole  organic 
beings  do  not  seem  to  have  been  very  greatly  disturbed 
by  the  change  in  the  climate  and  the  geography  of  the 
continent  which  the  last  glacial  period  brought  about. 

While  the  ice  lay  upon  the  northern  portion  of  the  con 
tinent,  the  surface  of  that  area  appears  to  have  been  borne 
down  by  the  weight  of  the  ice  to  a  considerable  depth 
below  its  present  level.  At  the  same  time  in  the  south 
ern  part  of  the  continent,  the  region  not  occupied  by  the 
glacier,  or,  in  general,  that  section  south  of  the  Ohio, 
the  Potomac,  and  the  Missouri  rivers,  appears  to  have 
been  subjected  to  a  considerable  elevation.  The  upward 
movement  of  the  land  seems  to  have  been  enough  to 
have  extended  the  shores  of  the  Southern  states  farther 
towards  the  equator  than  they  are  at  present  placed. 
The  northeastern  portion  of  the  continent  appears  to 
have  been  more  deeply  depressed  than  the  other  por 
tions  of  its  surface,  probably  for  the  reason  that  the  ice 
was  deeper  there  than  elsewhere.  It  seems  likely  that 
in  this  district  the  surface  was  lowered  more  than  a 
thousand  feet,  perhaps  several  times  that  amount,  below 
its  present  position. 

After  a  period  of  unknown  duration,  which  can  prob 
ably  be  reckoned  as  thousands  of  "years  in  length,  this 
ice-sheet  disappeared.  As  it  was  when  thickest  more 
than  a  mile  in  depth,  it  doubtless  required  a  long  time  to 
depart.  As  it  disappeared,  the  northern  part  of  the  con 
tinent  rose  again  above  the  sea-level,  while  the  southern 
portion  of  the  land  from  New  York  southwardly  along 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         6? 

the  Atlantic  and  along  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  sank  down 
beneath  the  sea.  While  this  southern  section  had  been 
elevated,  the  rivers  had  carved  deep  and  wide  valleys. 
When  the  land  sank,  the  sea  overflowed  much  of  the 
valley  lands  near  the  shore,  forming  great  bays  such  as 
the  Delaware,  Chesapeake,  Albemarle,  Pamlico,  and 
Mobile  bays.  All  these  bays  have  been  somewhat  filled 
in  by  mud  washed  down  by  the  rivers  since  the  shore 
came  to  its  present  level.  The  greatest  of  them,  as,  for 
instance,  that  in  which  now  lies  the  Mississippi  in  the 
part  of  its  course  between  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  with 
the  great  river  and  Southern  Louisiana,  has  been  filled 
with  mud  and  sand  brought  from  the  highlands  of  the 
great  central  valley. 

While  the  glacial  sheet  was  upon  the  northern  part  of 
the  continent,  it  moved  slowly  from  the  interior  part  of 
its  field  towards  its  margins  in  the  sea  and  on  the  land. 
Its  first  effect  was  to  sweep  away  all  the  soil  which  had 
previously  covered  the  country.  It  then  attacked  the 
harder  rocks,  cutting  them  away  in  the  following  man 
ner  :  fragments  of  stone  imprisoned  in  the  hard  ice 
and  projecting  from  its  bottom  acted  as  gouges  as  they 
were  dragged  over  the  bed-rock  in  the  forward  move 
ment  of  the  glacier ;  at  the  same  time  streams  of  fluid 
water  flowing  over  the  bottom  on  which  the  ice  rested 
washed  a  great  deal  of  fine  debris  from  the  inner  parts 
of.  the  glaciated  district  towards  the  edge  of  the  field. 

For  a  long  time  the  front  of  the  ice  stretched  across 
the  continent  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to  near  the 
foot  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  Dakota.  The  front 
remained  in  this  position  for  the  reason  that  the  south 
ward  movement  of  the  ice  was  just  sufficient  to  supply 
the  waste  which  took  place  in  the  mild  climate  to  which 


68          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

ft  attained.  As  the  glacier  was  constantly  carrying  for 
ward  quantities  of  stone  which  dropped  out  when  the  ice 
melted,  and  as  the  under-ice  streams  deposited  their 
coarser  sediment  where  they  escaped  from  the  ice-arches 
at  the  front  of  the  glacier,  the  result  was  that  a  consid 
erable  accumulation  of  gravel,  sand,  and  bowlders  was 
made  along  this  line.  In  many  places  this  moraine,  as 
it  is  called,  has  the  height  of  several  hundred  feet,  and 
extends  in  the  form  of  a  long  ridge  parallel  to  the  mar 
gin  of  the  glacier.  More  commonly,  "however,  the  front 
of  the  ice  did  not  remain  in  exactly  the  same  position 
for  any  great  time,  and  so  there  are  several  lesser  ridges 
parallel  to  each  other,  and  it  may  be  a  few  miles  apart, 
forming  a  belt  of  morainal  deposits.  The  greatest  of 
these  belts  extends  from  Eastern  Massachusetts,  where 
it  is  well  exhibited  on  the  promontory  of  Cape  Cod  and 
the  neighboring  islands  on  the  south,  westward  through 
Long  Island,  New  York,  thence  across  the  mainland  of 
New  Jersey,  through  parts  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York,  Central  and  Southern  Ohio,  and  thence  in  a  north 
westward  direction  through  Dakota.  When  the  ice 
lay  over  the  northern  and  eastern  parts  of  the  continent 
in  the  form  of  a  vast  sheet,  it  doubtless  presented  an 
unbroken  upper  surface  over  which  the  observer  could 
have  journeyed  from  the  Potomac  to  Greenland,  or 
from  the  valley  of  the  Saskatchewan  to  Newfoundland, 
without  observing  any  trace  of  the  hills  and  valleys 
which  were  beneath  him.  We  know  from  a  recent  ex 
amination  of  the  central  part  of  Greenland  that  such  a 
continental  glacier  smooths  over  hill  and  dale  as  a  win 
ter's  snowstorm  hides  the  irregularities  of  a  ploughed 
fiold  or  the  hills  where  Indian  corn  has  been  grown. 
When  the  continental  glacier  was  deepest  and  ex- 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  69 

tended  farthest  to  the  south,  there  were  many  smaller 
glaciers  in  the  mountains  of  the  Cordilleras  and  profr 
ably  also  in  those  of  Virginia  which  were  not  connected 
with  the  main  ice-sheet.  In  the  Cordilleras  some  of 
these  detached  glaciers  were  of  great  size,  as  for  in 
stance  that  of  the  upper  Arkansas,  which  occupied  the 
part  of  the  valley  in  which  Leadville  now  stands,  with 
an  ice-sheet  of  great  depth  and  thickness.  These  lesser 
detached  glaciers  also  formed  morainal  walls,  which  were 
often  of  great  size.  The  accumulation  of  these  deposits 
shows  that  in  the  case  of  these  valley  glaciers,  as  in  that 
of  the  greater  ice-sheet,  the  ice  remained  for  a  consider 
able  time  with  its  front  in  nearly  one  position. 

As  the  great  ice-sheet  ceased  to  be  well  fed  by  win 
ters'  snows,  its  margin  retreated  to  the  northward.  Here 
and  there  we  find  in  small  moraines  evidence  that  for  a 
little  while  the  ice  frequently  paused  in  its  falling  back. 
It  probably,  from  time  to  time,  after  having  retreated  a 
good  ways,  readvanced  to  near  its  original  front.  But 
after  a  time  it  utterly  disappeared  from  all  the  region 
east  of  the  Cordilleras,  and  remains  there  only  in  the 
form  of  very  limited  glaciers  which,  like  those  of  Switz 
erland  and  Norway,  occupy  high-lying  valleys  in  the 
mountains. 

When  the  continental  glacier  was  thick,  the  part  of 
its  mass  within  a  few  hundred  feet  of  the  ground  con 
tained  a  good  deal  of  mud,  sand,  and  stones  which  had 
been  riven  from  the  underlying  rocks.  When  the  glacier 
disappeared,  this  stony  matter  fell  down  upon  the  sur 
face  of  the  earth,  forming  a  coating  of  stony  and  clayey 
material,  commonly  known  as  till.  In  some  places  this 
deposit  was  a  hundred  feet  or  more  in  thickness.  Here 
and  there,  sometimes  over  large  fields,  this  till  was 


7O          THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

washed  away  by  the  melting  waters  of  the  glacier,  the 
waste  being  accumulated  in  beds  of  clay,  sand,  and 
pebbles.  The  most  of  the  brick  clays  of  this  country 
have  been  derived  in  this  way  by  the  sorting  of  the 
glacial  waste. 

All  the  soils  in  the  glacial  districts  are  mainly  formed 
of  this  glacial  detritus,  which  by  the  growth  of  plants 
upon  it  has  gradually  been  commingled  with  vegetable 
matter,  and  so  made  fit  for  the  husbandman's  use. 
These  soils  are  very  variable  in  quality.  In  those 
regions  where  a  great  amount  of  pure  siliceous  sand  has 
been  deposited  the  soil  may  be  too  sterile  to  give  any 
profitable  crops,  but  where  the  material  remains  in  the 
form  of  till,  the  farmer  generally  finds  a  strong  soil, 
which,  if  properly  cared  for,  is  very  enduring  to  the  tax 
which  agriculture  puts  upon  the  earth.  In  most  parts 
of  the  country  the  soils  which  are  upon  the  till  contain 
a  great  number  of  pebbles,  which  are  in  part  composed 
of  feldspars  and  mica.  They  also  often  contain  small 
quantities  of  apatite  or  crystallized  lime  phosphate. 
These  minerals  as  they  decay  furnish  potash,  soda,  lime, 
and  phosphorus  to  the  soil,  and  these  are  the  materials 
which  are  most  necessary  for  its  refreshment.  Thus 
we  see  that  the  bowlders  which  are  in  the  way  of  the 
plough  and  give  a  sterile  aspect  to  a  large  part  of  the 
glaciated  districts  are  really  to  be  considered  as  maga 
zines,  in  which  plant  food  is  stored  away  in  a  manner 
which  permits  it  to  be  slowly  yielded  to  the  soil. 

At  the  close  of  the  glacial  period,  when  the  rain 
waters  began  to  move  once  more  to  the  sea  in  a  fluid 
form,  the  surface  of  the  area  over  which  the  ice  had 
lain  had  a  very  imperfect  drainage.  The  valleys  of 
many  of  the  small  streams  excavated  before  the  last 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  /I 

glacial-  epoch  were  entirely  destroyed,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  the  ice  had  worn  away  the  rocks  in  which  they  lay. 
The  basins  of  all  the  considerable  rivers  remained,  but 
in  a  much  altered  form.  When  the  streams  of  fluid 
water  carved  them,  they  made  their  surfaces  slope  every 
where  continuously  downward  towards  the  sea  ;  but 
when  the  ice  overrode  them,  it  changed  these  inclined 
planes  to  slopes  of  a  pitted  and  irregular  character. 
Fluid  water  coursing  to  the  sea,  except  in  the  pot-holes 
about  a  waterfall,  never  excavates  a  pit ;  but  a  glacier 
can  cut  out  deep  excavations  in  soft  rocks  which  may 
have  a  depth  hundreds  of  feet,  and  be  walled  all  round 
with  rocks  which  were  of  harder  character  and  therefore 
wore  a  less  amount.  The  result  is  that  when  the  ice 
went  away,  the  free  water  accumulated  in  these  basins, 
forming  lakes  of  all  sizes  from  tiny  pools  to  very  exten 
sive  basins.  Moreover,  the  heaps  of  debris  which  were 
left  by  the  ice  blocked  a  great  many  channels  with  sand 
or  clay,  so  damming  in  yet  other  lakes. 

The  result  of  these  embarrassments  of  the  streams 
was  the  formation  of  innumerable  lakes  in  the  northern 
half  of  the  continent.  There  are  certainly  tens  of  thou 
sands  of  these  basins  still  occupied  by  water,  but  when 
the  ice  went  away  they  were  many  times  as  numerous. 
The  greater  part  of  these  basins  have  been  filled  in  with 
peat  or  by  the  sand  and  mud  washed  in  by  the  streams 
which  enter  them,  while  yet  others  have  been  drained 
away  through  the  cutting  down  of  the  barriers  through 
which  the  outflowing  streams  have  passed.  These  lakes 
are  still  gradually  disappearing,  but  they  will  long 
remain  as  the  most  beautiful  of  the  many  topographical 
features  which  give  charm  to  the  scenery  of  the  glaciated 
district,  and  which  are  derived  from  the  singular  actions 


72         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

which  the  ice  effected  on  the  surface  over  which  it 
flowed. 

There  were  some  interesting  changes  in  the  charac 
ter  of  the  organic  life  in  North  America,  which  appear 
to  have  occurred  just  after  the  disappearance  of  the  ice. 
So  far  as  we  have  learned,  no  great  alterations  in  the 
plants  or  the  lower  animals  occurred  either  in  the  onset 
or  the  disappearance  of  the  continental  glacier.  But 
among  the  higher  mammals  many  important  alterations 
were  effected.  Probably  before  and  during  the  glacial 
period,  and  certainly  in  the  closing  stages  of  that  time, 
a  number  of  great  herbivorous  animals  occupied  this 
continent  which  have  since  disappeared  from  the  earth. 
Among  them  we  reckon  two  great  species  of  elephants, 
the  mammoth  and  the  mastodon,  which  appear  for  a 
considerable  time  to  have  existed  in  large  numbers  on 
this  continent.  It  is  probable  that  the  American  mam 
moth  was  of  the  same  species  with  those  of  Siberia, 
which,  as  we  know  from  the  remains  preserved  in  the 
mud  at  the  mouths  of  the  great  rivers  of  Northern  Asia, 
were  hairy  elephants,  as  well  protected  against  the  Arc 
tic  cold  as  are  the  polar  bears.  The  mammoth  was  as 
large  as  the  greatest  living  elephants,  perhaps  larger,  and 
though  closely  akin  to  them,  must  have  presented  a 
very  different  appearance.  The  great  tusks  were  curi 
ously  curved  in  the  form  of  a  sickle,  with  the  points 
turned  back  towards  the  shoulders  of  the  animal.  Ow 
ing  to  the  long  hair,  which  on  ~the  back  of  the  neck 
appears  to  have  had  the  form  of  a  shaggy  mane,  these 
creatures  must  have  had  a  truly  formidable  aspect. 

The  mastodon  was  a  much  smaller  creature,  being 
rather  less  in  size  than  our  largest  living  elephants. 
Like  the  mammoth,  it  appears  to  have  dwelt  mostly  in 


THE    GROWTH    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  73 

and  about  the  swamps  and  streams,  and  it  is  in  the  mud 
of  such  situations  that  we  commonly  find  their  remains 
preserved.  Along  with  these  creatures  there  dwelt  in 
the  fields  from  which  the  glacial  ice  had  recently  passed 
away  even  as  far  south  as  Kentucky  a  large  variety  of 
musk  ox,  the  descendants  of  which,  much  reduced  in 
size,  now  occupy  certain  limited  fields  within  the  Arctic 
circle.  The  caribou  or  American  reindeer,  or  a  closely 
related  kinsman  of  the  species,  ranged  southward  into 
Kentucky,  where  its  bones  are  found  in  the  Big  Bone 
Lick.  There  was  also  a  species  of  bison,  taller  and 
slenderer  limbed  than  the  living  form  of  North  Amer 
ica,  which  disappeared  from  its  surface  as  the  ice-sheet 
went  away.  A  gigantic  beaver,  several  times  as  large 
as  the  existing  form,  is  also  to  be  counted  among 
these  recently  vanished  animals.  A  curious  variety  of 
dog  appears  to  have  existed  at  about  this  time,  as  is 
shown  by  certain  bones  found  in  the  caverns  of  East 
Tennessee. 

This  great  change  in  the  character  of  the  higher  life, 
while  the  lower  species  were  not  much  altered,  shows 
us  how  swift  are  the  changes  which  are  taking  place  in 
the  more  advanced  kinds  of  animals.  The  higher  the 
grade  of  a  creature's  development,  the  more  sensitive  it 
becomes  to  the  conditions  of  climate  and  the  other  cir 
cumstances  which  affect  its  existence.  Any  conditions 
which  affect  the  distribution  of  its  food  are  apt  to  lead 
to  its  destruction  or  force  it  to  extended  migrations. 

The  last  great  change  in  the  organic  life  of  North 
America  consisted  in  the  appearance  of  our  own  species 
on  this  continent.  It  is  not  known  at  just  what  time 
man  first  won  his  way  to  the  surface  of  this  land.  In 
the  opinion  of  certain  observers,  bits  of  shaped  stone 


74         THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

having  the  appearance  of  rude  implements  which  occur 
in  the  beds  of  gravel  near  Trenton,  N.J.,  are  to  be  re 
garded  as  evidence  that  men  were  here  during  the  time 
when  the  ice-sheet  was  most  extended.  Well-shaped 
tools  and  a  fragment  of  a  human  skull  have  been  found 
in  California,  in  ancient  river  beds  which  were  filled 
with  the  lavas  from  volcanoes  so  ancient  that  their 
craters  have  been  destroyed,  and  the  country  about  the 
old  valleys  so  far  worn  down  that  the  place  where  the 
old  rivers  lay  is  now  upon  the  hilltops.  We  do  not 
know  just  how  long  ago  this  Californian  man  lived,  but 
it  seems  likely  that  he  inhabited  that  part  of  the  conti 
nent  at  least  as  far  back  as  the  beginning  of  the  glacial 
time.  Similar  evidences  of  the  antiquity  of  man  have 
been  found  in  Europe,  where  it  now  seems  certain  that 
savages  hunted  the  hairy  mammoth  beside  the  extended 
glaciers  of  the  ice-epoch. 

Although  the  glacial  period  was  only  in  the  geological 
yesterday,  we  know  as  yet  but  little  concerning  the 
details  of  its  history.  It  will  probably  be  a  long  time 
before  we  shall  be  sufficiently  well  informed  as  to  what 
took  place  during  this  singular  period,  to  form  any 
judgment  as  to  the  cause  of  the  great  revolution  in 
climate,  or  its  precise  effects  upon  the  living  beings 
which  inhabited  the  earth. 

The  present  day  is  really  a  part  of  the  glacial  age ; 
remnants  of  the  ice-sheet  which  recently  desolated  half 
the  continent  still  remain  in  the  valleys  of  the  Cordil 
leras  of  British  America  and  Alaska,  and  cover  the 
greater  part  of  Greenland.  We  have  already  noted  the 
fact  that,  just  before  the  last  glacial  period,  a  tolerably 
warm  climate  prevailed  in  North  America  up  to  near 
the  pole.  It  seems  likely  that,  in  time  to  come,  these 


THE  GROWTH  OF  NORTH  AMERICA.         75 

conditions  of  warmth  will  revisit  the  portions  of  the 
land  which  are  now  sterilized  with  excessive  cold.  The 
change,  however,  will  doubtless  require  a  vast  time  for 
its  accomplishment. 

All  the  evidence  which  the  geologist  has  gathered 
concerning  the  continent  of  North  America  serves  to 
show  that  this  land — as  are,  indeed,  all  the  lands  of  the 
world  —  is  in  its  youth.  It  is  still  growing  up  from 
the  sea  at  such  a  rate  that  the  ceaseless  beating  of  the 
waves  and  the  washing  of  the  rains  does  not  serve  to 
diminish  its  area.  On  the  contrary,  its  area  is  probably 
greater  at  the  present  time  than  it  ever  has  been 
before. 


76  THE   PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION    OF    NORTH 
AMERICA. 

The  present  condition  of  the  continent.  Comparison  with  other  conti 
nents.  Its  mountains,  islands,  rivers,  and  other  geographic  features. 
Forests  of  North  America.  Prairies.  Climate.  Distribution  of  rain 
fall.  Indian  summer.  Storms.  Scenery  of  North  America.  Water 
falls.  Caflons.  Caverns.  Dead  seas.  The  continental  shelf.  Coral 
reefs. 

WE  have  already  traced,  at  least  in  outline,  the  his 
tory  of  the  continent  of  North  America.  We  have 
seen  how,  slowly  but  steadily,  this  great  elevation  has 
arisen  from  the  ocean,  and  how  it  has  maintained  it 
self  against  the  ceaseless  assaults  of  the  waves  of  the 
sea  and  the  currents  of  the  rivers.  It  has  ever  been 
wearing  away,  but  always  growing  upward  ;  portions 
of  its  surface  have  swayed  downward  beneath  the 
ocean,  while  parts  of  the  shallows  near  the  coast  have 
at  the  same  time  risen  above  the  water.  Again  and 
again  this  elevation  has  changed  its  shape ;  but  from 
the  beginning  the  continent  has  always  endured,  and 
has  constantly  become  better  fitted  to  be  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  higher  plants  and  animals  which  find  their 
habitations  on  the.land.  These  changes  have  gradually 
converted  what  was  originally  a  group  of  islands  into  a 
wide  field  of  land  suited  to  be  a  home  for  great  peoples. 
It  is  now  our  task  to  consider  the  existing  form,  climate, 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  77 

soil,  and  other  features  of  the  continent,  and  their  influ 
ence  on  their  living  tenants. 

As  will  be  seen  from  the  map,  North  America  has  a 
distinctly  triangular  shape,  the  only  considerable  de 
parture  from  this  form  being  due  to  the  indentation  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  last  remnant  of  the  original 
central  ocean  of  the  continent,  and  to  the  peninsulas 
and  islands  which  border  it  on  the  east.  This  great  tri 
angle  is  considerably  longer  than  it  is  wide ;  its  narrow 
side  or  base  lies  against  the  Arctic  Ocean ;  its  length 
is  3750  miles  ;  and  the  long  sides  have  an  extent  of 
about  5000  miles.  On  the  east  lies  the  Atlantic,  and 
on  the  west  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Thus,  North  America 
and  the  twin  continent  of  South  America  are  so  placed 
that  they  part  the  vast  ocean  into  two  great  basins. 
The  same  parting  is  effected  by  the  Old  World  group 
of  lands,  but  the  division  which  this  latter  group  of 
continents  effects  is  less  definite  and  complete.  The 
American  barrier  extends  nearer  to  both  poles  than  that 
of  the  Old  World. 

If  we  compare  the  continent  of  North  America  with 
the  united  land  masses  of  Asia  and  Europe,  we  are 
struck  with  the  fact  that,  while  the  shores  of  this  land 
mass  are  generally  straight  and  with  few  neighboring 
island  masses,  the  lands  of  the  Old  World  are,  except  in 
the  case  of  Africa,  singularly  fringed  with  peninsulas 
and  islands.  Bearing  in  mind  the  story  of  the  growth 
of  North  America  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  it  is  easy  to  see  the  reason  for  this  difference. 

In  North  America  there  are  few  of  those  mountain 
systems  which  form  the  centres  of  growth  in  the  land, 
there  being  in  all  in  this  continent  about  half  a  dozen 
of  such  systems  of  elevations,  while  in  the  great  mass 


78  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

of  the  Old  World  which  constitutes  Europe-Asia  there 
are  about  four  times  as  many  of  these  mountain  groups, 
each  forming  a  distinctly  separated  region  of  elevation. 
When,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  the  lowlands  between 
these  elevations  have  not  been  lifted  above  the  line  of 
the  sea,  the  uplifted  region  appears  as  an  island,  at  least 
until,  by  the  process  of  growth,  it  so  far  rises  above  the 
ocean  as  to  be  united  with  the  mainland.  The  consoli 
dated  form  of  North  America  is  thus  due  to  the  fact 
that  its  mountain  systems  are  few  in  number,  and  they 
have  generally  grown  for  a  sufficiently  long  time  to 
uplift  the  regions  about  them  into  dry  land. 

There  is  only  one  mountain  system  connected  with 
North  America  which  is  so  new  and  so  imperfectly  ele 
vated  that  it  gives  rise  to  a  considerable  group  of  islands. 
This  system  is  indicated  in  the  long  archipelago  which 
bounds  the  Caribbean  Sea  on  the  east  and  north,  gener 
ally  known  as  the  Antilles.  This  curious  elevation  rises 
from  deep  sea  on  either  side,  and  has  at  the  highest 
parts  a  height  above  the  floor  on  which  it  rests  of  ten 
or  fifteen  thousand  feet.  It  appears  to  have  begun  to 
grow  in  relatively  modern  geologic  times,  and  to  be  still 
in  process  of  upheaval.  In  its  present  state  it  closely 
resembles  the  ranges  of  the  Appalachian  and  the  Cor- 
dilleran  mountains  in  the  earlier  stages  of  their  history, 
when  they  formed  narrow,  strip-like  archipelagoes  com 
posed  of  the  emerged  mountain  tops.  In  time  the  sys 
tem  of  the  Antilles  will  probably,  by  continuous  growth, 
lead  to  the  emergence  not  only  of  the  mountains  them 
selves,  but  of  broad  fields  of  what  are  now  sea-bottoms, 
thus  repeating  the  process  of  growth  which  has  gone  on 
in  the  older  regions  of  elevation  of  the  continent. 

It  is  evident  that   North  America   is   composed   of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  79 

several  mountainous  fields  which,  by  their  long-contin 
ued  growth,  have  lifted  not  only  their  ridges,  but  much 
of  the  sea-bottom  above  the  plane  of  the  ocean  waters. 
It  is  less  evident,  but  still  to  the  geologist  plain,  that  in 
the  northern  and  eastern  part  of  the  continent  the  moun 
tains  almost  or  entirely  ceased  to  grow  at  a  distant 
period  in  the  earth's  history,  and  at  the  present  time 
the  powers  which  construct  these  elevations  appear  to 
be  active  only  in  the  region  about  the  southern  and 
western  portions  of  the  continent.  As  a  whole,  the 
mountain-building  work  of  Eastern  North  America  was 
done  in  an  earlier  day,  and  has  not  been  continued  to 
as  late  a  time  as  in  Europe  and  Asia.  One  of  the  re 
sults  of  this  diversity  in  history  is  that  the  mountains 
of  America  have  been  more  worn  down  than  those  of 
the  Old  World.  They  have  been  longer  exposed  to  the 
action  of  the  rock-destroying  agents  of  the  atmosphere, 
and  consequently  have  lost  a  good  deal  of  their  original 
height. 

The  northeastern  part  of  North  America  consists  of 
a  remarkable  group  of  islands  separated  from  each  other 
by  shallow  and  generally  narrow  arms  of  the  sea ;  the 
largest  of  these  islands  is  Greenland  which  covers  an 
area  of  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square 
miles,  or  fifteen  times  as  large  as  New  York  state. 
The  form  of  Greenland  is  rudely  triangular ;  in  its  shape 
it  resembles  the  regular  continents,  but  this  resemblance 
is  probably  accidental.  The  surface  of  this  extensive 
district  is  of  a  mountainous  nature,  at  least  in  those 
parts  of  it  which  are  open  to  view ;  but  only  a  small 
portion  of  the  land  in  the  southern  extremity  and  a 
narrow  and  interrupted  strip  of  the  eastern  and  western 
shores  are  visible  :  the  remainder  of  the  surface  is  cov- 


8O  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

ered  by  a  deep  coating  of  snow  and  ice  which  probably 
rises  in  the  central  parts  of  the  island  to  the  height  of 
from  five  to  eight  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  This 
icy  covering  is  the  remnant  of  the  glacial  sheet  which, 
in  recent  geologic  times,  covered  the  northern  half  of 
this  continent.  If  it  could  be  removed,  the  apparently 
connected  land  underneath  it  would  probably  prove  to 
consist  of  a  series  of  islands  separated  by  shallow  straits 
like  those  which  lie  nearer  to  the  northern  mainland  of 
the  continent.  These  land  areas,  slightly  detached  from 
the  continent,  which  are  such  a  peculiar  feature  of  the 
northern  part  of  North  America,  are  not  islands  of  the 
same  decided  nature  as  those  which  compose  the  Ma 
layan  Archipelago  or  those  of  the  Antilles ;  they  are 
probably  parts  of  the  continent  wherein  the  valleys, 
formed  during  the  time  when  the  land  was  somewhat 
higher  than  it  is  at  present,  have  been  depressed  below 
the  level  of  the  sea.  The  Malayan  islands,  those  of 
Japan,  the  Antilles,  and  the  most  of  the  other  large 
insulated  lands,  are,  in  fact,  the  summits  of  mountainous 
districts  or  the  crests  of  volcanic  peaks  which  have 
not  been  united  with  the  adjacent  continents,  and  not 
merely  portions  of  the  continent  separated  by  river  or 
ice-worn  valleys  from  the  neighboring  continents. 

Except  Greenland,  none  of  the  islands  about  the 
northern  part  of  North  America  have  a  decided  moun 
tainous  character;  they  are  only_  moderately  elevated, 
their  irregularities  having  the  general  nature  of  hills ; 
that  is,  they  owe  their  shape  to  the  action  of  water  or 
ice  in  carving  out  hollows  in  generally  horizontal  strata. 
If  this  archipelago  of  Arctic  America  were  not  unfit 
for  life  on  account  of  its  extreme  cold,  it  would  be  a 
very  suitable  region  for  the  use  of  man.  The  surface 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  8 1 

is  diversified  ;  the  rocks  have  much  mineral  wealth,  and 
are  of  a  nature  to  form  a  fertile  soil :  the  numerous 
inlets  of  the  sea  would  afford  good  advantages  for  ship 
ping.  Sometime  before  the  last  glacial  period  this  part 
of  the  world  had  a  temperature  much  higher  than  it  has 
at  present ;  and  judging  by  the  fossil  plants  which  have 
been  preserved,  the  winter  climate  was  probably  not 
colder  than  that  which  is  now  found  in  Southern  Eng 
land  or  the  lower  parts  of  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  but 
there  were  no  men  at  that  time  to  enjoy  the  benefits  of 
these  favorable  conditions.  It  is  not  impossible  that  in 
future  geologic  ages  the  climate  of  this  region  may 
once  again  become  of  a  temperate  character,  making  it 
fit  for  the  life  of  man. 

The  mainland  of  North  America  contains  in  its  north 
eastern  part  a  singular  enclosed  sea  which  bears  the 
inappropriate  name  of  Hudson's  Bay.  It  is  not  a  bay, 
but  rather  a  basin  like  the  Black  Sea  or  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  On  the  east  it  is  separated  from  the  North 
Atlantic,  except  for  a  narrow  strait  by  the  peninsula 
of  Labrador,  a  mountainous  land,  the  elevations  of  which 
are  very  ancient,  and  have  been  worn  down  to  their 
roots  by  the  action  of  rivers,  glacial  ice,  and  sea-waves. 
On  the  north  it  is  bordered  by  the  peninsulas  of  the 
continent,  and  on  the  west  by  the  irregular  plain-land 
district  of  the  central  part  of  the  continent.  Hudson's 
Bay  or  Sea,  as  we  should  call  it,  is  many  times  as  large 
as  Lake  Superior,  and  is  the  most  conspicuous  and  pecu 
liar  feature  in  the  northern  part  of  this  continent.  The 
conditions  of  its  formation  are  not  yet  well  known,  but 
it  seems  likely  that  it  is  a  part  of  a  great  valley  of  the 
continent  which  may  never  have  risen  above  the  level  of 
the  ocean  ;  or  if  ever  so  elevated,  it  has  been,  like  many 


82  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

other  of  the  northern  valleys  of  this  level,  again  lowered 
below  the  plane  of  the  sea.  It  is  probable  that  Hudson's 
Sea  may  be,  like  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  a  remaining  fragment 
of  the  ocean  which  in  the  early  history  of  the  continent 
divided  the  eastern  mountains  of  North  America  from 
those  on  the  western  border  of  that  land  area.  It  may 
have  been  deepened  and  widened  by  the  grinding  action 
of  the  ice  during  the  glacial  periods,  as  the  Great  Lakes 
have  been,  but  it  cannot  be  considered  as  altogether  due 
to  the  erosive  work  of  ice  acting  during  those  stages  in 
the  earth's  history. 

Continuing  our  sketch  of  the  irregularities  of  the 
coast-line  of  the  continent  of  North  America,  we  notice 
the  group  of  islands  at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 
These  islands  include  Newfoundland,  the  greatest  of 
the  islands  which  lie  near  the  northern  shores  of  North 
America,  unless,  indeed,  Greenland  should  be  a  single 
island  mass,  and  not  an  archipelago  united  by  a  sheet  of 
ice.  Along  with  Newfoundland  we  have  the  neighboring 
considerable  islands  of  Anticosti  and  Cape  Breton  and 
the  peninsula  of  Nova  Scotia,  which  is  almost  separated 
from  the  mainland  by  the  deep  indentation  of  the  Bay 
of  Fundy.  These  several  masses  of  land  are  parted  from 
the  continent  by  very  shallow,  though  in  some  cases 
wide,  arms  of  the  sea.  These  straits  seem  to  be  old 
valleys  which  were  excavated  when  this  part  of  the  con 
tinent  was  higher  than  it  is  at  present,  and  have  subse 
quently  been  lowered  below  the  level  of  the  sea.  They 
have  also  been  deepened  and  widened  by  the  action  of 
the  glacial  strearps  which  have  flowed  through  them 
since  they  were  originally  formed.  All  these  islands 
except  Anticosti  and  Prince  Edward  Island  are  com 
posed  of  ancient  rocks  which  have  been  much  folded 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  83 

into  mountain  ridges  and  subsequently  greatly  worn 
down  by  the  action  of  rain  and  sea-waves.  These  last- 
named  islands  have  in  the  main  escaped  the  influence  of 
the  mountain-building  process.  They  are  probably  the 
remnants  of  high  table-lands  bordering  old  valleys  which 
have  been  in  part  buried  beneath  the  sea. 

South  of  Nova  Scotia  there  are  for  a  good  distance  to 
the  south  no  important  islands  near  the  shore  of  North 
America.  Along  the  northern  coast  of  New  England 
is  found  a  fringe  of  small  isles  such  as  border  the  hard 
rock  shores  of  all  districts  which  have  been  subjected  to 
glacial  action  and  constitute  the  so-called  fjord  or  inlet 
and  island  zone  of  such  regions.  These  small  islands  owe 
their  separation  from  the  mainland  to  the  lowering  of  old 
valleys  beneath  the  sea  and  to  the  cutting  action  of  the 
glacial  sjieet,  which  has  worn  away  the  rock  in  a  very 
irregular  manner.  We  can  form  an  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  glacial  wearing  formed  these  numerous  islets  by 
taking  two  pieces  of  smooth  wood,  one  of  clear  timber, 
and  the  other  thickly  beset  with  knots,  then  rubbing 
each  of  them  for  a  time  with  sandpaper,  taking  pains  to 
apply  the  friction  equally  to  every  part  of  the  surface  : 
we  soon  observe  that  the  knotty  timber,  because  of  its 
varied  hardness,  wears  irregularly,  each  knot  remaining 
as  an  elevation  while  the  softer  parts  wear  away.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  clear  wood  wears  down  in  a  uniform 
manner.  A  like  difference  is  observable  where  the 
glacial  sheet  wears  upon  different  kinds  of  rock  :  if  the 
rock  be  of  horizontally  stratified  beds,  it  generally  is  of 
uniform  hardness  like  the  clear  wood ;  if,  however,  the 
rock  be  crystalline,  as  it  is  along  the  most  of  the  north 
ern  parts  of  this  continent,  then  it  is  certain  to  be  of 
very  diverse  degrees  of  hardness,  and  so  it  wears  down 


84  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

in  an  irregular  manner  under  the  action  of  the  glacial 
scouring.  In  this  way  the  surface  of  crystallized  rocks, 
such  as  granite  and  gneiss,  always  becomes  very  irregu 
larly  shaped  when  worn  by  ice-streams,  and  the  plane  of 
the  sea  forms  many  inlets  and  islands  along  the  shore 
which  is  formed  of  such  materials. 

South  of  Boston  Bay  we  have  in  Cape  Cod,  Martha's 
Vineyard,  Nantucket,  Block  Island,  and  Long  Island, 
N.Y.,  a  number  of  detached  masses  of  land  which  owe 
their  origin  to  another  effect  of  glacial  action.  They1 
are  in  the  main  fragments  of  the  great  frontal  moraine,! 
or  heap  of  bowlders,  clay,  and  sand  which  have  been 
scraped  from  the  bed-rocks  of  the  region  over  which  the 
ice  moved  and  carried  forward  to  the  front  of  the  ice- 
sheet.  The  sea  has  swept  away  a  large  part  of  these 
materials,  which,  not  being  firmly  bound  together,  fall 
an  easy  prey  to  the  waves ;  but  the  remnants  preserved 
in  these  islands  form  a  curious  feature  in  the  geography 
of  the  Atlantic  coast. 

South  of  New  York  the  shore  is  generally  bordered 
by  a  fringe  of  sea-beach  islands  which  form  a  barrier 
enclosing  a  strip  of  shallow  waters  which  sometimes 
expand  into  considerable  basins,  such  as  Albemarle  and 
Pamlico  sounds.  So  continuous  is  this  strip  of  land, 
that  it  is  possible  to  travel  in  a  canoe  through  the  water 
they  enclose  almost  all  the  way  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Hudson  River  to  Cape  Florida.  The  conditions  which 
lead  to  the  formation  of  these  beaches,  and  consequently 
to  the  enclosure  of  the  lagoons,  are  very  easily  under 
stood.  When  the  bottom  of  the  sea  shelves  gently 
to  the  seaward,  the  waves  of  great  storms  cannot  attain 
the  shore,  but  are  compelled  to  break  in  water  twenty 
or  thirty  feet  deep,  it  may  be  some  miles  out  from  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  85 

coast-line.  The  tumult  of  waves  stirs  up  the  sand  and 
drives  it  forward  to  the  point  where  they  break  ;  and  as 
in  breaking  they  cease  to  move  forward,  this  sand  is 
cast  into  a  heap  which  soon  rises  above  the  level  of  the 
sea.  Subsequent  storms  form  more  sand  upon  the  new 
island,  the  wind  sweeps  the  sand  of  the  shore  into  hil 
locks  or  even  considerable  hills  called  dunes,  and  so  in 
time  a  considerable  strip-like  island  may  be  formed  par 
allel  to  the  shore. 

.Along  no  other  coast  are  these  sand-beaches  so  con 
tinuous  as  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  United  States. 
They  extend  from  New  York,  with  few  interruptions,  to 
the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande,  which  separates  the 
United  States  from  Mexico.  They  enclose  an  almost 
continuous  strip  of  shallow  water  navigable  for  light 
boats.  Along  the  coast  of  Florida,  from  Cape  Canave 
ral  to  the  Tortugas,  for  a  distance  of  about  two  hundred 
miles,  there  is  another  peculiar  class  of  coast  islands,  — 
the  coral  reefs.  These  reefs  are  constructed  in  part  by 
the  solid  portions  of  certain  stone-making  corals,  and  in 
part  by  the  remains  of  other  forms  of  marine  animals 
and  plants  which  secure  a  favorable  place  for  their  life 
through  the  protection  which  the  masses  of  coral  afford. 

Finding  a  lodgement  on  the  sea-bottom  at  a  depth  of 
less  than  about  one  hundred  feet,  these  corals,  where 
there  is  a  strong  current  of  warm,  clear  sea-water  sweep 
ing  by  them,  swiftly  grow  upward  until  they  reach  the 
surface  of  the  ocean.  Where  the  Gulf  Stream  sends  its 
tide  of  warm  water  against  the  shores  of  Southern  Flor 
ida,  the  most  favorable  conditions  for  the  growth  of  coral- 
making  animals  is  secured  :  bathed  in  very  warm  water, 
with  suitable  food  brought  to  the  mouths  of  each  of 
the  tiny  animals,  they  grow  and  multiply  with  amazing 


86  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

rapidity,  and  in  a  very  brief  time  form  barriers  which 
seem  at  first  sight  exactly  like  the  lagoon  islands  of 
more  northern  shores.  But  on  closer  view  we  see  that 
these  reefs  are  altogether  composed  of  fragments  derived 
from  the  decay  of  the  coral  and  of  the  other  animals 
which  dwell  amid  its  branches.  The  waves  beat  the 
coral  to  pieces  and  cast  the  fragments  on  the  top  of  the 
reef,  the  winds  blow  the  fine  lime  sand  into  low  hills  on 
the  top  of  the  reef,  and  so  in  time  a  place  is  made  for 
the  palms  and  mangroves  and  other  plants  which  clothe 
these  islands. 

The  southern  part  of  Florida,  perhaps  about  a  third  of 
the  peninsula,  is  composed  of  coral  reefs  which  have 
grown  in  succession  to  the  southward  against  the  Gulf 
Stream,  gradually  restricting  the  exit  place  of  the  water 
until  it  is  confined  to  a  comparatively  narrow  channel. 
On  the  eastern  side  of  the  stream  the  coral  reefs  of  the 
Bahamas  have  likewise  pressed  outward  and  westward, 
still  further  confining  the  path  of  the  great  current.  We 
thus  see  that  the  colonies  of  coral  animals,  though  the 
individual  creatures  are  tiny,  can  do  a  great  geologic 
and  geographic  work.  It  is  probable  that  this  hamper 
ing  of  the  movement  of  the  Gulf  Stream  has  affected 
in  some  measure  the  temperature  of  Northern  Europe, 
to  which  its  warm  waters  carry  heat  and  with  it  the 
possibilities  of  life. 

On  the  continental  side  of  the  sand  and  coral  island 
barrier  of  the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  we 
find  numerous  extensive  sounds  or  bays  which  deserve 
attention.  Those  of  the  Delaware,  Chesapeake,  Albe- 
marle,  and  Pamlico  are  the  most  conspicuous  on  the  At 
lantic  coast ;  that  of  Mobile  is  the  largest  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Mexican  Gulf.  There  are  many  other  of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  87 

these  bays  of  smaller  size  than  those  mentioned.  These 
enlargements  of  the  sea  are  explained  in  the  following 
manner :  In  recent  geologic  time  the  southern  coast  of 
the  United  States  has  been  at  a  higher  level  than  at 
present.  In  this  time  of  elevation  the  rivers  cut  wide 
valleys  as  they  swung  their  channels  to  and  fro  in  the 
endless  movements  which  characterize  all  streams  whose 
beds  are  not  limited  by  hard  rock.  After  these  valleys 
had  been  cut,  the  land  was  lowered  and  the  ocean 
admitted  to  them.  At  present  these  sounds  or  bays  are 
being  filled  up  by  the  sand  and  mud  which  is  constantly 
pouring  downward  towards  the  sea.  Thus  the  Missis 
sippi  River  recently  discharged  near  Cairo,  at  the  junc 
tion  of  the  upper  river  and  the  Ohio,  into  a  long,  broad 
bay,  which  extended  south  to  the  Gulf ;  but  it  has  filled 
the  whole  of  its  basin  with  silt,  and  has  extended  the 
deposit  beyond  the  mouth  of  the  depressed  valley.  In 
time  all  these  sounds  will  be  filled  by  the  land  waste, 
and  the  shore  be  brought  to  a  straighter  form. 

On  the  Pacific  coast  there  are  fewer  irregularities  to 
be  considered,  and  of  these  we  know  less  than  of  the 
features  of  the  Atlantic  coast.  In  Alaska  we  find  a 
singular  group  of  islands  which  extend  in  a  long  cres 
cent  from  the  American  shore  to  near  that  of  Asia. 
In  general  character,  these  islands  resemble  the  Antilles, 
but  they  are  of  much  less  importance.  They  appear  to 
be  the  emerged  peaks  of  a  growing  mountain  range,  a 
branch  from  the  great  system  of  the  Cordilleras.  They 
are,  so  far  as  we  have  learned,  composed  mainly  of 
volcanic  deposits.  The  whole  of  this  series  of  eleva 
tions  is  separated  from  the  mainlands  of  Asia  and 
America  by  deep  water.  They  are  therefore  not  to  be 
considered  as  a  definite  part  of  either  continent,  but 


88  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

are  most  likely  connected  with  North  America,  as  a 
fringe  of  its  great  mountain  system. 

South  of  Behring  Strait,  and  thence  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia  River  in  Oregon,  the  shore  abounds  in 
islands,  which  probably  owe  their  separated  nature  to 
the  same  conditions  that  have  produced  the  islands 
along  the  shore,  from  Massachusetts  Bay  to  Greenland  ; 
namely,  to  the  erosive  action  of  old  glacial  streams,  and 
the  submergence  beneath  the  sea  of  old  valleys.  From 
Oregon  to  the  southern  limit  of  the  United  States 
the  shore  is  almost  destitute  of  islands,  and  has  few 
sounds  or  bays.  The  most  important  of  these  rare 
indentations,  that  of  San  Francisco,  is  probably  due  to 
the  lowering  of  the  land,  which  had  previously  been 
shaped  into  a  set  of  valleys  below  the  level  of  the  sea. 
That  such  bays  are  rare  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  probably 
to  be  explained  by  the  infrequency  of  rivers  on  that 
portion  of  the  seaboard  of  the  continent  and  the  con 
sequent  lack  of  valleys,  which,  when  depressed  beneath 
the  sea,  might  afford  harbors. 

Lower  California  forms  the  largest  and  most  inter 
esting  peninsula  of  North  America.  It  has  a  length  of 
800  miles,  and  a  width  of  140  miles,  in  size  being  ex 
ceeded  by  few  such  tongues  of  land.  Unlike  Florida, 
which  appears  to  have  owed  its  formation,  in  large  part, 
to  the  action  of  the  Gulf  •  Stream,  in  promoting  the 
rapid  growth  of  marine  animals,  which  secrete  lime 
stone  in  their  skeletons,  the  Californian  peninsula  is  a 
mountainous  district,  and  contains  very  elevated  land. 
It  is  a  spur,  or  rather  a  continuation  of  the  mountain 
range,  which  extends  along  the  coast  of  California. 
The  base  on  which  this  southern  part  of  the  range 
rests,  has  not  shared  in  the  elevation,  which  has  lifted 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  89 

the  northern  part  so  high  that  it  is  united  to  the  main 
land.  This  peninsula  of  Lower  California  is  the  eastern 
barrier  of  the  great  gulf  of  that  name,  which  is  the 
largest  indentation  on  the  western  coast  of  the  Amer 
ican  continents,  and  on  the  east  is  only  surpassed  by 
the  Caribbean  Sea  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

South  of  the  United  States  we  come  into  the  isthmus 
portion  of  the  continent,  the  narrowing  lands  which 
connect  the  northern  with  the  southern  continent  of 
the  New  World.  There  are  no  large  islands  in  this 
district,  and  only  one  peninsula  which  demands  notice. 
This  is  the  singular  promontory  of  Yucatan,  which  in 
form  departs  widely,  as  does  the  neighboring  peninsula 
of  Florida,  from  the  prevailing  shape  of  the*  other  great 
capes  of  the  continent.  All  the  other  promontories  of 
considerable  size,  such  as  those  of  Greenland,  Nova 
Scotia,  or  even  California,  trend  with  the  shores  against 
which  they  lie  ;  but  those  of  Yucatan  and  Florida  are 
set  at  an  angle  to  the  neighboring  coast  line.  We 
have  seen  that  the  Floridian  peninsula  may  be  mainly 
accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  a  good  part  of  its 
mass  is  formed  of  animal  remains.  It  is  thus  a  great 
monument  of  organic  life  built  against  the  shore.  The 
peninsula  of  Yucatan  is  not  to  be  thus  explained  ;  its 
origin  is  yet  to  be  accounted  for,  though  it  is  probably 
in  part  composed  of  coral  reefs. 

Having  considered  its  coast  line,  we  now  turn  our 
attention  to  the  interior  portion  of  the  continent  of 
North  America.  The  preceding  chapters  have  made  it 
plain  that  the  growth  of  this  land-mass,  as  indeed  of  all 
the  lands  which  deserve  the  name  of  continents,  has 
been  brought  about  by  the  development  of  mountain 
systems  :  the  continents  are  created  by  the  uplifting  of 


9O  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

the  surface  either  in  the  form  of  sharp  ridges  or  of  the 
broad  table-lands  which  grow  upwards  as  the  ridges 
arise.  We  will  therefore  first  review  the  greater  among 
the  mountain  systems  of  this  continent,  then  take  into 
consideration  the  rivers  which  have  their  positions  de 
termined  in  good  part  by  the  mountains  which  bound 
and  shape  their  valleys,  and  lastly  consider  the  lakes  and 
plain-lands.  There  are  three  very  distinct  groups  of 
mountains  in  North  America,  besides  several  relatively 
unimportant  systems  of  elevation  which  have  had  little 
to  do  with  the  shape  or  history  of  the  continent.  The 
three  great  mountain  groups  are,  in  the  order  of  their 
importance,  the  Cordilleras,  the  Appalachian,  and  the 
Laurentian  systems.  We  will  consider  them  in  the1 
order  in  which  they  are  named,  which  is  also  their  suc 
cession  in  importance  measured  by  their  size  or  the 
part  they  now  play  and  have  played  in  determining  the 
climate  and  other  conditions  of  life  in  this  land. 

The  Cordilleran  mountain  system  is  the  northern 
half  of  the  longest  district  of  elevations  on  the  earth. 
It  extends  from  the  northern  part  of  North  America  to 
the  southernmost  extremity  of  South  America,  every 
where  forming  the  west  coast  portion  of  the  twin  con 
tinents.  Only  in  the  Isthmus  of  Darien  do  we  find  a 
distinct  break  in  this  line  of  elevation ;  there  for  about  a 
hundred  miles  the  ridges  sink  down  to  near  the  level  of 
the  sea.  A  little  to  the  north  of  ^he  Isthmus  of  Darien 
the  range  rises  to  a  height  of  some  thousands  of  feet 
above  the  ocean,  and  we  find  on  its  flanks  the  distinct 
table-land  elevations  which  almost  invariably  are  formed 
along  with  the  crumpling  of  the  rocks  which  construct 
a  true  mountain  range.  As  we  go  north  the  ridges 
become  more  developed,  they  occupy  a  wider  field,  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  9! 

table-land  as  well  as  the  peaks  are  higher,  and  the  result 
is  the  wider  land  of  Mexico,  a  region  of  elevated  plains 
which  upholds  several  mountain  chains.  Thence  north 
wards  to  the  northwestern  extremity  of  the  continent 
the  mountain  ranges  of  this  system  are  numerous  and 
their  table-lands,  at  least  on  their  eastern  side,  distinct. 
The  field  they  occupy  is  on  the  average  a  thousand 
miles  in  width.  Numerous  peaks  rise  to  about  fifteen 
thousand  feet  in  altitude,  or,  say,  three  miles  above  the 
sCa-level,  and  the  pedestal  or  table-land  district  on  which 
they  rest  rises  to  the  height  of  about  a  mile  above  the 
ocean  shore. 

Approaching  the  Cordilleras  from  the  east,  every 
where,  except  in  the  region  of  Central  America  and 
Mexico,  we  find  that  we  begin  to  climb  up  a  wide  plateau 
by  slow  degrees,  from  a  point  some  hundreds  of  miles 
from  the  mountain  ridges  :  then  we  come  suddenly  to 
a  true  mountain  range.  Beyond  it  lies  a  district  of 
table-lands  where  the  rocks,  though  uplifted,  are  not 
much,  if  at  all,  crumpled.  Further  west  there  is  an 
other  crumpled  district,  then  another  irregular  strip  of 
table-land,  and  this  succession  continues  until  we  reach 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  On  the  western  side  of  the  moun 
tains  the  table-land  is  not  so  evident  as  on  the  eastern 
or  continental  border  of  the  system.  It  seems  possible 
that  it  has  been  carved  away  by  the  long-continued 
action  of  the  sea.  We  shall  find  the  same  arrangement 
in  the  case  of  the  Appalachian  Mountains  ;  the  table 
land  on  the  interior  side  of  the  mountain  belt  is  much 
plainer  than  on  the  side  which  faces  the  sea. 

Besides  the  principal  ridges  of  the  Cordilleras  which 
extend  in  a  general  north  and  south  direction,  leaning 
a  little  to  the  west,  there  are  many  less  important 


92  THE    PRESENT   GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

ranges  of  mountains  which  lie  crosswise  of  the  main 
system,  having  a  general  east  and  west  direction.  The 
result  is  a  tangle  of  elevations  which  have  to  be  con 
sidered  in  a  map  to  show  the  true  nature  of  the  system. 
So  considered,  it  is  clear  that  the  forces  or  strains  which 
folded  these  mountains,  acted  in  the  main  in  an  east 
and  west  direction.  Let  these  pages  of  paper  represent 
the  rocks  of  that  part  of  the  earth's  crust  occupied  by 
the  Cordilleras,  the  right  hand  side  the  east,  the  left 
side  the  west,  as  on  a  map :  press  them  together  from 
the  sides  and  we  can  fold  them  into  ridges.  This  pres 
sure,  and  the  consequent  corrugations  of  the  paper, 
represent  in  a  rude,  diagrammatic  way  the  force  and 
effects  of  the  pressure  which  created  the  main  chains 
of  the  Cordilleras.  Press  the  sheets  less  strongly  in 
the  plane  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  book,  and  we  find 
that  there  is  a  tendency  to  form  folds  which  run  across 
the  page.  This  experiment  is  imperfect  in  its  results, 
because  the  sheets  of  paper  are  thin,  small,  and  very 
flexible ;  but  we  may  with  some  thought  conceive  how 
thick  beds  of  rock,  occupying  a  field  a  thousand  miles 
across,  might  fold  in  two  different  ways  under  the 
influence  of  pressure  acting  in  two  diverse  lines. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  Cordilleras  or  any 
other  mountains  owe  their  shape  to  the  work  of  the 
uplifting  forces  alone.  While  their  height  above  the 
sea  is  due  to  these  constructive  powers  arising  from 
the  shrinking  of  the  earth,  their  actual  shapes  are 
greatly  affected  by  the  various  wearing  actions  which 
their  exposure  to  the  air  brings  about.  Frost,  streams 
of  ice,  above  all,  the  endless  wearing  of  torrents  and 
rivers  ever  shifting  their  beds  and  always  wearing  the 
rocks  away,  have  together  taken  from  this  mountain 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  93 

district  far  more  of  the  total  amount  of  elevated  land 
than  now  remains  there.  The  mountain  peaks  and 
ridges  are  now  fragments  of  the  arched  rocks  of  which 
they  were  formed.  This  is  the  history  of  all  the  eleva 
tions  of  this  planet.  Their  shape  is  determined  by  the 
opposing  forces  which  on  the  one  hand  lift  them  upward 
and  on  the  other  work  to  bring  them  down  to  the  level 
of  the  sea. 

The  wearing  action  of  rain-water  or  of  glaciers  in  the 
Cordilleran  mountain  district  is  now  slight,  for  the  rea 
son  that  this  part  of  the  earth  is  at  present  subjected  to 
singular  conditions  of  drought.  In  former  geological 
periods  the  rainfall  was  far  greater  than  at  present,  and 
the  mountain  torrents  and  rivers  which  they  fed  were 
proportionately  greater  and  more  efficient  in  covering 
the  land.  At  this  comparatively  recent  time  great  lakes 
fed  by  large  rivers  existed  where  there  are  now  arid 
plains  or  shrunken  sheets  of  salt  water  such  as  the  Salt 
Lake  of  Utah. 

The  Appalachian  system  of  North  America  lies  near 
the  eastern  shore  of  the  continent,  as  the  Cordilleran 
borders  the  western  coast.  The  eastern  system  presents 
many  points  of  likeness  and  of  contrast  with  the  more 
extreme  western  mountains.  The  Appalachian  system 
is  smaller  in  every  way  than  the  western  Cordilleras. 
Its  length  is  half  as  great,  it  is  less  than  half  as  wide, 
and  both  the  ridges  and  table-lands  much  less  than  half 
as  high  as  those  features  in  the  western  system.  Except 
in  the  section  from  Virginia  northward,  the  ranges  of 
this  system  do  not  touch  the  coast,  while  those  of  the 
Pacific  slope  everywhere  border  the  sea.  There  are  no 
distinct  cross  ranges  in  the  Appalachians  such  as  we 
find  in  the  Cordilleras.  The  mountains  run  in  a  general 


94  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

northeastward  and  southwestward  path,  varying  little 
from  that  trend.  They  do  not  make  as  continuous  a 
barrier  between  the  sea  and  the  interior  of  the  conti 
nent  as  do  the  elevations  of  the  Rocky  Mountain 
district. 

The  Appalachian  mountain  system  extends  from  New 
foundland,  where  it  is  obscurely  united  to  the  Lauren- 
tian  system,  which  is  yet  to  be  described,  to  Northern 
Alabama,  where  the  ranges  sink  downward  and  pass 
beneath  the  level  of  rocks  which  were  formed  since 
these  mountains  were  elevated,  disappearing  as  lesser 
ridges  may  under  a  thick  coating  of  snow.  This  system 
is  composed  of  numerous  successive  ridges  lying  parallel 
to  each  other,  with  intervening  valleys  which  are,  like 
the  ridges,  much  narrower  and  lower  than  the  like 
features  in  the  Cordilleras.  There  are  many  subordi 
nate  parts  of  this  great  assemblage  of  mountains,  each 
with  its  own  peculiar  character  and  history.  The  core 
or  centre  of  the  system  is  the  Smoky  Mountains,  Blue 
Ridge,  and  the  connected  mountains  which  bear  other 
names.  This  ridge  is  obscurely  exhibited  in  Northern 
Georgia  and  Alabama ;  it  rises  in  height  in  Western 
South  Carolina,  and  attains  its  maximum  height  in  North 
Carolina,  where  it  exhibits  the  highest  and  most  bulky 
mountains  found  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  continent. 
From  North  Carolina  northward  this  Blue  Ridge  set  of 
mountains  diminishes  in  height  ^nd  width  ;  in  Virginia 
it  gradually  descends,  until  at  the  Potomac  it  is  a  narrow 
range  of  elevations  rising  to  less  than  two  thousand 
feet  above  the  sea.  In  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  it 
sinks  down  and  is  barely  traceable  in  obscure,  slight 
elevations. 

On  the  eastern  side  of  the  Hudson,   at  its  mouth, 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  95 

this  system  of  the  ancient  Appalachians  rises  again 
above  the  level  of  the  sea  in  the  range  of  elevations 
known  as  the  Berkshire  Hills  in  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  and  as  the  Green  Mountains  of  Vermont. 
These  pass  obscurely  into  the  White  Mountains,  and 
are  yet  more  obscurely  continued  to  the  eastward  and 
northward  in  the  ancient  mountains  of  Northern  Maine, 
Nova  Scotia,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  elevations  of 
Newfoundland.  This  old  axis  of  the  Appalachians  was 
partly  in  existence  in  the  very  ancient  stages  of  the 
earth's  history,  known  as  the  Cambrian  time,  and  in 
part  grew  up  during  the  immediately  succeeding  periods  : 
it  is  thus  all  old  land.  Its  age  is  indicated  by  the  pro 
found  erosion  by  rain  and  glaciers  which  it  has  received, 
and  also  by  the  fact  that  we  find  fragments  of  its  rocks 
in  all  the  later-formed  strata  which  have  been  built  on 
the  sea-floors  near  the  foot  of  these  mountains. 

On  the  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge  division  of  the  Appa 
lachians  we  have  the  numerous  and  sharper  ridges  of 
the  Alleghany  division  of  these  mountains  :  these  ele 
vations  were  formed  after  the  coal-measures  were  laid 
down,  and  they  show  their  relative  newness  by  the 
comparatively  small  amount  of  wearing  to  which  they 
have  been  exposed.  They  appear  to  any  observant  eye 
as  if  fresh  from  the  factory,  while  the  Blue  Ridge  hills 
have  a  battered  and  worn-out  look.  In  good  part  the 
preservation  of  these  ridges  of  the  Alleghany  division 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  lie  on  the  continental  side 
of  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  have  thus  been  protected  by 
those  elevations  from  the  action  of  the  sea,  which  has 
in  the  long  history  of  the  continent  cut  back  the 
eastern  face  of  this  last-named  barrier  to  the  distance 
of  some  scores  of  miles  from  the  present  shore. 


96  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

The  Alleghany  chain  of  mountains  may  be  traced 
from  Northern  Alabama  to  the  Catskills  in  New  York. 
They  vary  greatly  in  character  ;  generally  they  have  the 
form  of  distinct  foldings,  somewhat  like  plaited  or  frilled 
cloth,  but  in  Eastern  Tennessee  long  fractures  or  faults 
often  change  their  shape.  In  this  district,  for  some 
reason,  th£  rocks  did  not  evenly  crumple  as  in  more 
northern  parts  of  the  same  field,  but  rent  apart,  and 
were  shoved  about  under  the  action  of  the  pressure 
which  forced  them  up  into  folds. 

East  of  the  Blue  Ridge  and  its  northern  continuation 
lies  a  belt  of  mountains  which  were  formed  in  part,  at 
the  same  time  as  the  Alleghany  division  of  the  Appa 
lachians,  and  in  part  at  a  later  day.  These  various 
mountains  have  been  worn  down  to  their  roots,  so  that 
they  no  longer  appear  on  the  maps  as  mountain  ranges, 
and  are  not  recognized  as  such  by  the  eye  of  the  or 
dinary  traveller.  The  geologist  sees,  however,  that 
the  beds  of  rock  have  been  folded  into  great  disloca 
tions,  and  that  these  ridges  have  been  cut  away  by 
the  waves  of  the  neighboring  sea.  At  various  times 
since  these  mountains  began  to  grow  the  sea  has  stood 
at  a  higher  level  than  at  present,  and  so  has  beaten 
against  the  upturned  folds  of  the  old  strata  for  a  very 
great  time,  and  thus  has  worn  away  their  summits, 
leaving  only  their  foundations  to  tell  of  the  once  great 
elevations  which  were  here.  Th^se  easternmost  Appa 
lachians  are  most  distinct  in  North  Carolina  and  Vir 
ginia.  Traces  of  them  are  found  northward  in  the 
region  between  New  York,  and  Eastport,  Me.,  and 
faintly  in  Nova  Scotia  as  well.  Some  of  these  eleva 
tions  appear  to  have  developed  in  geologically  recent 
times  :  thus  on  the  island  of  Martha's  Vineyard  rocks 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  97 

of  tertiary  age  are  crumpled  into  mountainous  forms, 
the  movement  having  taken  place  in  the  last  stages  of 
the  earth's  history. 

The  pedestal  or  table-land  of  the  Appalachians  is 
much  less  conspicuous  than  that  of  the  Cordilleras,  and 
as  in  that  system  it  is  most  conspicuous  on  the  interior 
continental  side  of  the  ranges.  In  Central  Tennessee 
and  Eastern  Kentucky  it  rises  to  about  fourteen  hun 
dred  feet  above  the  sea,  locally  to  yet  greater  eleva 
tions.  With  varying  height  it  follows  the  line  of  the 
mountain  folds  to  the  northeastward  to  the  region  of 
the  Catskills  in  New  York,  where  it  attains  its  greatest 
elevation  of  about  four  thousand  feet  above  the  sea. 
North  of  this  point  it  falls  away  ;  for  the  mountains  to 
which  it  immediately  belongs,  the  Alleghanies,  die  out 
near  the  Mohawk  River.  In  the  Catskills  this  table 
land  is  so  high,  that,  being  cut  up  into  sharp  peaks  by 
the  action  of  rivers,  the  mass  appears  to  be  a  noble 
chain,  but  looking  closely  we  perceive  that  the  strata 
are  horizontal,  and  the  peaked  character  is  due  to  the 
excavations  of  the  valleys ;  in  a  word,  that  the  Catskills 
are  really  very  great  hills,  their  strata  not  having  the 
folded  character  we  find  in  true  mountains.  The  table 
land  or  pedestal  of  the  Appalachians  on  the  eastern 
side  has  to  a  great  extent  been  worn  away  by  the  sea ; 
still  the  mountains  of  this  system  rest  generally  upon  a 
broad  elevation  which  rises  to  the  height  of  several 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  ocean. 

The  Appalachian  mountain  system  is  greatly  inter 
sected  by  large  rivers,  presenting  in  this  as  in  other 
features  a  marked  contrast  to  the  Cordilleran  system. 
These  rivers  at  several  points  almost  completely  divide 
the  mountain  belt.  Thus  the  French  Broad,  a  tributary 


98  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

of  the  Tennessee,  starts  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  district,  and  continued  in  the  main  stream  trav 
erses  the  Western  or  Alleghanian  section,  and  falls  into 
the  Mississippi.  The  James  River  heads  against  the 
westernmost  distinct  ridge  of  these  mountains  and  flows 
to  the  Atlantic.  The  waters  of  the  Susquehanna  trav 
erse  all  the  important  ridges  of  Pennsylvania,  and  flow 
into  Chesapeake  Bay.  The  Mohawk  turns  around  the 
northern  end  of  the  Alleghany  ranges  and  falls  into 
the  Hudson,  which  flows  in  the  valley  between  these 
ranges  and  the  northern  continuation  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
range.  Thus  the  Appalachian  system  lacks  the  geo 
graphic  solidity  of  the  system  of  the  Cordilleras,  which 
is  not  so  completely  intersected  by  rivers,  but  remains 
a  vast  wall  between  the  central  and  eastern,  and  the 
western  parts  of  the  continent. 

We  have  already  noticed  several  points  of  contrast 
between  the  structure  and  aspect  of  the  Appalachian 
mountains  and  the  Cordilleran  elevations.  We  must 
now  note  the  fact  that,  while  volcanoes  recently  in  active 
operation  —  some  still  in  a  state  of  half  activity  —  are 
abundant  in  the  western  district,  no  trace  of  such  vol 
canic  peaks  is  found  in  the  eastern  mountain  system. 
It  is  tolerably  clear  that  no  volcanic  outbreaks  have 
taken  place  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  continental  main 
land  for  many  geologic  ages :  the  last  accidents  of  this 
nature  occurred  in  the  time  of  the  Trias  — not  long  after 
the  coal-measures  were  formed  —  at  the  time  when  the 
red  sandstones  of  the  Connecticut  Valley  and  of  New 
Jersey,  and  also  the  coal  of  the  basin  near  Richmond, 
Va.,  were  forming.  In  all  this  vast  period  since  the 
Triassic  time  the  region  east  of  the  Mississippi  seems 
to  have  been  exempt  from  the  disturbances  which  volca 
noes  bring  to  a  country. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  99 

The  third  mountain  system  of  North  America  is  that 
of  the  Laurentians,  an  imperfectly  explored  mountain 
country  lying  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great 
Lakes.  Comparatively  little  is  known  of  this  vast  field 
of  old  mountain  ridges  :  the  district  it  occupies  is  in 
hospitable  to  man,  and  has  been  but  seldom  visited  by 
geologists.  Indeed,  its  superficial  geography  is  as  yet 
but  imperfectly  determined.  From  the  insufficient  ex 
plorations  we  can  make  out  only  the  merest  outlines  of 
the  history  of  this  interesting  district.  The  form  of  this 
Laurentian  upland  is  rudely  that  of  the  letter  V,  the 
eastern  side  being  the  peninsula  of  Labrador,  and  the 
western  extending  in  the  trend  of  the  western  side  of 
Hudson's  Sea,  which  occupies  in  part  the  space  between 
the  two  belts  of  low  mountains.  Wherever  examined 
these  mountains  appear  as  low,  worn-down  hills  of  very 
ancient  rocks, — rocks  which  are,  indeed,  of  the  oldest 
period  known  to  geologists. 

This  northern  district  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  the 
primitive  nucleus  or  germ  of  North  America :  from  its 
mass  has  come  a  very  large  part  of  the  sands  and  mud 
which  have  gone  to  form  the  stratified  rocks  of  the 
eastern  part  of  the  continent,  worn  away  by  the  rains 
and  ice  of  unimaginably  long  periods ;  it  is  therefore  to 
be  expected  that  these  mountains  would  appear  as  mere 
wrecks  of  the  original  elevations.  In  fact,  they  nowhere 
now  attain  a  height  above  three  thousand  feet.  The 
destruction  of  the  elevations  in  the  Laurentian  district 
is  so  complete  that  we  cannot  make  out  the  original 
trend  of  the  several  ranges ;  as  in  an  ancient  city  where 
the  devastation  wrought  by  time  leaves  nothing  but  a 
confused  ruin  which  we  only  know  to  have  been  the 
dwelling-place  of  men  by  the  nature  of  the  materials,  so 


IOO      THE  PRESENT  GEOGRAPHIC  CONDITION 

this  old  mountain  field  can  only  be  shown  to  have  been 
at  one  period  like  the  newer  systems  of  the  Cordilleras 
and  the  Appalachians,  by  the  waste  of  its  former  struc 
tures.  The  shape  of  the  Laurentian  mountain  field  is 
very  peculiar ;  indeed,  unexampled  among  such  systems 
of  elevations.  All  other  systems  form  nearly  straight 
lines  or  gentle  curves,  while  this  has,  as  before  noted, 
the  form  of  a  letter  V.  It  seems  likely  that  there  are 
two  or  more  distinct  sets  of  elevations  in  this  district 
which  may  have  been  formed  at  different,  though  very 
ancient  times.  As  a  whole  these  mountains  must  be 
regarded  as  the  remnant  of  a  system  which  once  had 
a  great  part  in  the  geography  and  climatal  history  of 
the  continent,  but  which  long  since  ceased  to  have  any 
decided  influence  on  its  conditions.  Unlike  the  Cordil 
leras  or  the  Appalachians,  it  does  not  at  present  in  any 
decided  way  affect  the  existing  conditions  of  the  land. 

The  subordinate  mountain  systems  of  North  Amer 
ica,  those  groups  of  elevations  which  cannot  be  distinctly 
connected  with  the  three  great  fields  before  mentioned, 
are  interesting  but  mostly  of  small  importance,  except 
so  far  as  they  show  the  wide  range  of  the  forces  which 
bring  about  the  wrinkling  of  the  earth's  crust.  In 
Greenland,  and  in  various  parts  of  the  Arctic  district  of 
the  northeastern  portion  of  the  continent,  there  are  ele 
vations  of  a  mountainous  nature  which  have  not  been 
much  studied  by  geologists.  Within  the  United  States 
we  have  several  mountain-built  districts  which  cannot 
be  referred  to  any  of  the  systems  above  mentioned.  Of 
these  the  most  notable  are  the  Adirondacks  of  New 
York,  the  Black  Hills  of  Dakota,  and  the  Ozarks  of 
Missouri  and  Arkansas. 

The  Adirondacks  appear  to  be  more  closely  related 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  tOI 

to  the  Laurentian  system  than  to  any  other  field  of 
mountains ;  but  they  are  not  distinctly  connected  with 
that  system,  for  they  are  parted  from  it  by  the  deep 
and  wide  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  as  they  are  also 
separated  in  an  equally  distinct  manner  from  the  Appa 
lachians.  The  Adirondacks  form  a  nearly  circular  field 
of  mountains,  having  an  area  of  about  six  thousand 
square  miles.  In  this  field  there  are  some  scores  of 
peaks  from  two  thousand  to  five  thousand  feet  high. 
No  very  distinct  order  of  arrangement  is  observable  in 
these  elevations,  for  they,  like  the  Laurentians,  are  very 
old  mountains,  worn  down  by  the  action  of  the  elements 
to  mere  relics  of  their  former  mass.  It  is  a  peculiar 
feature  of  this  group  of  elevations,  that  it  is  everywhere 
surrounded  by  lowlands  which  rise  at  most  to  a  few 
hundred  feet  above  the  sea. 

The  Black  Hills  of  Dakota  are  an  outlying  mountain 
district,  separated  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  by  a  re 
gion  of  a  plain-like  character  having  a  width  of  about 
two  hundred  miles.  The  general  structure  of  the  ridges 
shows  them  to  be  closely  related  to  the  Cordilleran  sys 
tem.  The  mountains  rise  to  the  height  of  over  7250 
feet,  and  occupy  a  field  of  about  eight  thousand  square 
miles.  The  Ozark  district  of  Missouri,  the  Indian  Ter 
ritory,  and  Arkansas  is  the  most  detached  group  of 
elevations  in  the  continent.  They  lie  about  midway 
between  the  Cordilleras  and  the  Appalachians,  their 
only  neighbors  being  a  number  of  similarly  detached 
elevations  in  the  Indian  Territory  and  in  Northwestern 
Texas.  The  elevations  of  this  system  occupy  an  area  of 
about  ten  thousand  square  miles,  and  rise  to  the  height 
of  about  two  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  This  little 
mountain  system,  like  the  Adirondacks,  seems  to  have 


IO2  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

been  formed  in  the  early  geological  ages  in  a  time  when 
the  greater  systems  in  the  east  and  west  had  not  begun 
the  most  important  development  which  they  afterwards 
underwent.  Although  a  conspicuous  feature  in  the 
lowland  where  they  lie,  the  Ozarks  have  not  in  any 
considerable  way  affected  the  physical  history  of  the 
continent.  At  several  points  in  other  portions  of  the 
great  central  plain-land  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  the 
rocks  show  the  existence  of  the  strains  which  built  them 
into  folds,  but  the  elevations  they  have  produced  are  of 
even  less  consequence  than  the  scattered  systems  we 
have  just  described. 

The  great  valleys  of  the  continent  have  their  position 
determined  in  the  main  by  the  distribution  of  the  prin 
cipal  mountain  systems. 

Our  study  of  these  elevations  has  prepared  the  way 
for  our  account  of  the  greater  troughs  of  the  land,  and 
the  rivers  which  occupy  them.  At  the  outset  we  should 
notice  that  valleys  are  naturally  divided  into  two  groups, 
—  the  greater,  which  occupy  broad  fields  between  the 
separate  systems  of  mountains,  and  the  lesser,  which 
owe  the  existence  of  their  troughs  entirely  to  the  cutting 
action  of  the  stream  itself.  In  the  first  group,  to  which 
the  most  of  the  longest  rivers  of  the  world  belong,  their 
valleys  are  shaped  by  the  distribution  of  mountain  sys 
tems  ;  in  the  second,  the  stream  generally  lies  in  good 
part  within  a  single  mountain  system  and  determines 
the  form  of  its  valley  by  its  own  carving  power. 

Beginning  our  account  with  the  northern  valleys  and 
rivers  of  the  continent,  we  find  that  into  the  Arctic 
Ocean  there  falls  but  one  river  of  considerable  size,  the 
Mackenzie,  the  least  of  the  three  great  rivers  of  North 
America.  The  valley  of  this  river  appears  to  be  formed 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  IO3 

by  the  barriers  of  mountain  systems,  that  of  the  Cor 
dilleras  on  the  west  and  the  obscure  and  as  yet  unex 
plored  ridges  which  continue  the  western  line  of  the 
Laurentian  Mountains  towards  the  Arctic  Circle.  Ow 
ing  to  the  forbidding  cold  of  this  region,  the  valley  of 
the  Mackenzie  is  almost  unknown  except  along  the 
greater  water-courses  which  are  traversed  by  the  agents 
of  fur  companies.  From  the  little  which  is  as  yet  ascer 
tained  about  it,  this  valley  appears  to  be  essentially  like 
that  of  the  Mississippi,  except  for  the  lowness  of  the 
mountains  on  its  eastern  border.  There  are  the  same 
broad  plains  on  either  side  of  the  stream  as  we  find  in 
the  greater  southern  river.  The  stream  of  the  Macken 
zie  carries  much  less  water  than  the  Mississippi,  and 
differs  from  it  in  certain  ways  determined  by  the  ex 
tremely  cold  climate  of  the  country  through  which  it 
flows.  Like  the  rivers  of  Siberia,  this  stream  often 
freezes  to  the  bottom  in  the  winter.  Its  sources  being 
much  farther  south  than  the  main  channel,  a  great  tide 
of  water  is  poured  into  it  before  the  ice  has  melted 
away  from  the  channel.  The  result  is  that  this  ice  acts 
as  an  obstruction  to  the  floods,  and  causes  the  northern 
portions  of  its  bed  to  wander  about  in  a  very  irregular 
manner. 

Like  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Mackenzie  receives  the 
waters  of  many  great  lakes.  Next  after  that  stream  it 
is  the  most  extensively  fed  from  lakes,  of  any  river  on 
the  continent.  Although  the  total  area  of  lakes  drain 
ing  into  this  stream  is  only  about  half  that  which  goes 
to  the  St.  Lawrence,  they  serve  to  give  it  the  steady 
flow  which  characterizes  the  larger  stream.  This  great 
extent  of  lake  basins  in  the  northern  part  of  North 
America  is  a  peculiar  feature  of  the  continent,  and  is 


104  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

mainly  to  be  explained  by  the  peculiar  actions  which 
took  place  during  the  glacial  period. 

South  of  the  central  head-waters  of  the  Mackenzie  we 
find  the  valley  of  the  Churchill  River,  a  stream  of  the 
third  order  of  size,  which  flows  to  the  eastward  and  falls 
into  Hudson's  Sea.  It  is  but  obscurely  separated  from 
the  greater  river  of  the  north,  and  also  from  the  valley 
of  the  Nelson  on  the  south  :  it  also  draws  away  the 
water  from  a  number  of  large  lakes. 

On  its  path  to  the  eastward  the  Nelson  River  passes 
across  the  line  of  the  western  Laurentian  district  of 
elevations,  which  here  has  hardly  any  value  as  a  barrier, 
for  it  is  crossed  by  several  streams.  This  stream,  like 
the  Mackenzie,  gathers  the  greater  part  of  its  waters  in 
the  district  of  the  Cordilleras,  through  the  branches  of 
its  principal  tributary,  the  Saskatchewan  :  it  also  re 
ceives  the  tribute  of  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  which 
heads  against  the  upper  branches  of  the  Mississippi. 
These,  its  two  principal  confluents,  unite  in  Lake  Win 
nipeg,  a  noble  area  of  fresh  water  as  large  as  Lake 
Ontario.  It  also  receives  the  waters  of  many  other 
large  lakes. 

The  valley  of  the  Nelson  is  so  slightly  separated  from 
those  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence  that  it  is 
possible  in  the  spring-time  to  pass  in  a  canoe  from  the 
waters  of  the  more  northern  river  to  those  of  the  neigh 
boring  southern  streams  with  b'rt  little  if  any  carriage  of 
the  boat  at  difficult  places.  The  reason  for  this  lies  in 
the  fact  that  there  are  no  mountain  barriers  between  the 
head-waters  of  these  rivers;  they  all  rise  in  the  rela 
tively  flat  central  trough  of  the  continent  formed  be 
tween  the  eastern  and  western  mountains. 

East  of  the  Nelson  there  are  numerous  small  streams 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  IC«5 

which  flow  from  the  west,  south,  and  east,  into  the 
great  basin  of  Hudson's  Sea.  They  are  not  well  known. 
They  all,  however,  are  small,  and  do  not  command  our 
attention. 

The  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence  is  the  second  in  im 
portance  among  the  river  valleys  of  this  continent.  In 
certain  regards  it  is  akin  to  the  other  northern  rivers 
we  have  been  describing.  Like  them,  it  draws  away 
the  water  from  a  great  number  of  lakes ;  indeed,  it  is, 
except  perhaps  the  Nile,  the  greatest  of  all  the  lake-fed 
rivers  of  the  world  in  the  volume  of  water  it  discharges : 
it  drains  a  greater  area  of  fresh-water  basins  than  any 
other  stream.  The  river  systems  of  the  northern  and 
eastern  part  of  the  continent  are  noteworthy  for  the  vast 
extent  of  their  natural  storage  reservoirs,  and  among 
them  the  St.  Lawrence  has  the  foremost  place.  The 
conditions  of  the  St.  Lawrence  Valley  are  peculiar.  On 
the  north  it  is  bounded  by  the  Laurentian  uplands,  but 
on  the  south  from  the  outlet  of  Lake  Superior  to  the 
rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence  there  is  no  such  high  wall  as 
we  are  accustomed  to  find  on  each  side  of  a  great  river 
valley.  At  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Michigan  there  is 
only  a  few  feet  of  height  separating  the  waters  of  that 
great  lake  from  the  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi,  which 
head  up  against  the  southern  border  of  this  inland  sea  : 
in  Ohio  and  New  York  the  edge  of  the  barrier  rises  only 
to  two  or  three  hundred  feet  above  the  neighboring 
lakes  of  Ontario  and  Erie. 

The  absence  of  a  distinct  southern  wall  to  the  basin 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  gives  to  that  valley  a  character 
unknown  in  that  of  the  other  rivers  of  North  America, 
and  apparently  unexampled  in  the  other  great  stream 
basins  of  the  world.  The  St.  Lawrence  is  also  peculiar 


IO6  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

in  the  fact  that  its  waters  do  not  descend,  as  in  the  case 
of  most  rivers,  by  a  gentle  declivity  from  the  source  of 
the  stream  to  its  mouth,  but  find  their  way  to  the  sea  by 
several  great  steps  in  falls  or  rapids,  with  long,  nearly 
level  intervals  between  them.  The  uppermost  of  these 
steps  or  benches  is  occupied  by  Lake  Superior,  from 
which  the  Laurentian  waters  descend  to  their  next 
lower  platform  by  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  or  rapids  which 
lead  to  the  lower  level  of  the  other  great  lakes,  Hu 
ron,  Michigan,  and  Erie.  The  second  descent  is  made 
where  these  waters  pass  over  the  rapids  in  the  great 
fall  of  Niagara.  By  yet  another  step  in  the  rapids 
between  Lake  Ontario  and  Montreal,  the  waters  of  the 
main  St.  Lawrence  attain  the  level  of  the  sea  ;  but  they 
course  for  the  further  distance  of  several  hundred  miles 
in  a  tidal  estuary  which  gradually  widens  until  it  de 
bouches  into  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence.  Taken  alto 
gether,  the  St.  Lawrence  is,  for  the  volume  of  water 
which  it  passes  to  the  sea,  the  least  distinctly  river-like 
of  all  the  great  streams  in  the  world.  It  mostly  consists 
of  great  lakes  and  a  long  arm  of  the  sea :  even  where, 
as  at  the  Straits  of  Detroit,  near  Niagara  Falls,  and 
'between  Lake  Ontario  and  Quebec,  it  seems  river-like, 
the  well-trained  eye  perceives  that  it  has  not  the  char 
acter  of  an  ordinary  stream,  for  the  reason  that  it  has 
hardly  a  trace  of  sediment  in  its  waters.  It  is  charac 
teristic  of  nearly  all  other  great  streams  that  they  have 
to  struggle  on  their  way  to  the  sea  with  a  vast  amount 
of  alluvial  matter  brought  to  the  valleys  from  the  beds 
of  torrents  by  which  they  are  fed.  All  such  materials 
in  the  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  except  the  small 
amount  contributed  by  the  affluents  which  join  it  below 
Lake  Ontario,  are  deposited  on  the  floors  of  the  Great 
Lakes. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  IO/ 

Owing  to  these  peculiarities,  the  St.  Lawrence  has  no 
alluvial  plain  ;  its  clean  waters  have  very  little  cutting 
power  on  the  rocks  ;  and  it  has  no  delta,  or  deposit  of 
sediment,  at  its  mouth,  —  a  feature  which  is  almost  in 
variably  found  at  the  mouths  of  great  rivers  when  they 
enter  the  sea. 

South  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  north  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  there  are  a  number  of  lesser  rivers,  only  a  few 
of  which  deserve  mention  in  this  general  account  of 
North  America.  The  first  of  these  to  be  noticed  is  the 
Hudson.  The  main  channel  of  this  stream,  extending 
from  near  Lake  George  to  its  mouth,  occupies  a  broad 
valley  which  has  only  been  in  small  part  excavated  by 
the  river  itself.  It  consists  mainly  of  a  trough  between 
the  Catskill  Hills,  or  remnant  of  the  Alleghanian  table 
land,  on  the  west  and  the  Berkshire  Hills  on  the  east. 
At  the  close  of  the  last  glacial  period  this  valley  was 
occupied  by  an  arm  of  the  sea  which  extended  up  through 
the  depression  in  which  lie  Lakes  George  and  Cham- 
plain,  and  thence  to  the  strait  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  then 
much  wider  than  it  is  at  present.  The  recent  elevation 
of  this  valley  has  not  entirely  deprived  the  Hudson  of 
its  character  of  a  marine  inlet,  for  in  the  lower  half  of 
its  course  it  is  still  rather  to  be  classed  as  an  arm  of  the 
sea  than  as  a  river. 

East  of  the  Hudson  we  have  in  the  Connecticut  one 
of  the  noblest  of  the  New  England  group  of  rivers, 
which  deserves  mention  on  account  of  certain  peculiar 
features.  Like  the  Hudson  it  occupies  a  trough  between 
two  districts  which  owe  their  elevation  to  mountain-build 
ing  forces.  On  the  west  lie  the  Berkshire  Mountains 
and  their  northward  continuation,  the  Green  Mountains 
of  Vermont,  and  on  the  east  a  broadly  elevated  district 


IO8  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

which  is  likewise  to  be  reckoned  as  mountainous.  At 
the  close  of  the  glacial  period  the  valley  of  the  Connecti 
cut,  like  that  of  the  Hudson,  as  well  as  all  the  other  parts 
of  the  continent  lying  to  the  northeastward,  was  de 
pressed  to  the  depth  of  some  hundred  feet  below  the 
sea-level,  and  in  this  time  it  formed  a  great  inlet  extend 
ing  from  the  present  shore-line  to  the  northern  part  of 
Massachusetts,  or  perhaps  into  Vermont.  During  this 
time  the  floor  of  the  great  fiord  became  deeply  covered 
with  the  debris  washed  in  from  the  neighboring  higher 
ground,  the  wreckage  of  the  rocks  produced  during 
the  glacial  time.  When  the  valley  was  re-elevated,  the 
broad,  flat  deposit  of  mud  and  sand  was  carved  by 
the  stream  into  beautiful  terraces  which  are  perhaps  the 
best  examples  of  such  structures  which  are  to  be  found 
in  this  country. 

It  is  characteristic  of  all  the  other  rivers  in  the  New 
England  district,  in  which  we  may  include  New  Bruns 
wick  as  well,  that  the  rivers  commonly  discharge  into 
arms  of  the  sea  and  have  more  or  less  distinct  remains 
of  terraces,  at  least  in  the  parts  of  their  valleys  which 
are  some  distance  back  from  the  shore.  It  is  also  char 
acteristic  of  these  streams  that  they  carry  tolerably 
uniform  volumes  of  clear  water.  This  feature  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  they  drain  from  districts  thickly  covered 
by  a  coating  of  glacial  drift  composed  of  sand  and  gravel, 
which  to  a  great  extent  stores  the  rain-water  in  the  wet 
seasons  and  delivers  it  to  the  channels  in  times  of 
drought.  Where  these  streams  flow  from  the  north 
southwardly  they  generally  have  steep  descents,  falling 
usually  at  the  rate  of  a  foot  or  more  in  a  mile.  Where, 
however,  their  waters  move,  as  is  the  case  in  certain  rare 
instances,  from  the  south  towards  the  north,  they  have 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  ICX) 

very  sluggish  streams  which  sometimes,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Concord  River,  wind  their  way  deviously  through 
marshes  to  the  sea.  The  cause  of  this  difference  in 
the  slope  of  the  streams  is  found  in  a  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  the  position  of  the  continent  in 
its  northeastern  part,  occurring  since  the  glacial  ice 
passed  away  from  its  surface.  This  part  of  the  land 
has  been  bodily  tilted  up  to  the  northward  and  eastward, 
so  that  all  the  old  shore-lines  which  mark  the  ancient 
sea-level  ascend  to  the  northeastward  at  the  rate  of  a 
foot  or  more  to  the  mile  :  the  result  is,  that  the  streams 
which  flow  towards  the  north  have  had  their  slopes  in 
large  part  destroyed,  while  those  which  flow  towards 
the  south  have  steeper  descents  than  before  the  change 
took  place. 

South  of  the  Hudson,  along  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf 
coast,  there  are  a  number  of  considerable  rivers,  the 
Delaware,  Susquehanna,  Potomac,  James,  Roanoke, 
Savannah,  Mobile,  as  well  as  many  other  lesser  but  still 
considerable  streams,  none  of  which  present  individual 
peculiarities  deserving  notice  in  our  general  survey  of 
North  American  rivers.  All  those  mentioned  head  in 
the  Appalachian  system  of  mountains,  and  two  of  them, 
the  Susquehanna  and  the  James,  divide  not  only  the 
Blue  Ridge  portion  of  that  mountain  system,  but  cut 
through  all  but  the  more  western  folds  of  the  Alleghany 
chain.  Two  other  streams,  the  Delaware  and  the  Po 
tomac,  entirely  divide  the  ancient  Blue  Ridge  axis. 

It  is  quite  characteristic  of  these  seaboard  rivers 
which  pour  into  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf,  that  they 
do  not  pass  directly  into  the  open  sea,  but  debouch  in 
bays  which  widen  gradually  towards  the  ocean.  This 
seems  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  region  through 


I  IO  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

which  they  flow  was  recently  at  a  greater  height  than 
at  present,  and  during  the  elevation  the  rivers  cut  out 
channels  in  the  then  shore  land  which  was  farther  out  to 
sea  than  the  present  coast :  the  subsequent  sinking  of 
the  shore  permitted  the  sea  to  extend  up  the  lower  part 
of  the  valley  for  a  considerable  distance.  These  bays 
were  once  a  good  deal  longer  than  they  are  at  present, 
for  the  mud  brought  down  by  the  rivers  has  filled  the 
upper  part  of  them. 

The  rivers  which  discharge  into  the  Pacific  are  few 
in  number :  the  most  important  are  the  Colorado,  which 
empties  into  the  Bay  of  Lower  California ;  the  Columbia, 
which  discharges  through  Oregon  ;  and  the  Yukon,  which 
empties  into  Behring  Sea.  All  these  rivers  gather  their 
waters  within  the  Cordilleras  :  owing  to  the  relatively 
small  rainfall  which  characterizes  the  interior  region  of 
that  mountain  district,  they  have  a  great  length  for  the 
amount  of  water  which  they  bear  to  the  sea. 

The  Colorado  is  on  many  accounts  the  most  remark 
able  of  the  three  greater  Pacific  coast  streams.  Its 
waters  are  mostly  derived  from  melting  snows  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  ;  for  the  greater  part  of  its  length  the 
stream  receives  few  tributaries.  It  is  probable  that  no 
other  river  in  the  world  except  the  Nile  flows  so  far 
without  being  joined  by  streams  from  the  neighboring 
country.  Like  the  Nile,  the  Colorado  flows  through  a 
desert,  though  the  desert  which  Borders  the  Colorado, 
unlike  that  which  borders  the  lower  Nile,  is  very  ele 
vated  :  it  lies  at  a  height  of  about  five  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea.  Through  this  table-land  the  stream  has 
cut  a  deep  gorge,  or  canon,  the  most  wonderful  narrow 
valley  in  the  world.  The  Columbia,  in  the  middle  por 
tions  of  its  length,  flows  also  through  a  very  arid 


UNIVERS          } 

OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  Ill 

£2^ 

country,  but  the  regions  about  its  head-waters  and  near 
its  mouth  are  more  fertile.  In  the  middle  portion  of  its 
course  the  Columbia  passes  through  a  vast  field  of 
volcanic  rock,  one  of  the  largest  areas  overlaid  by  lavas 
which  the  world  affords.  The  Yukon  is  a  noble  stream, 
on  many  accounts  the  finest  river  of  the  Pacific  coast  of 
North  America,  for  it  drains  a  country  which  has  a 
greater  rainfall  than  the  other  great  streams  ;  but  the 
region  is  entirely  unfit  for  agriculture,  on  account  of  the 
coldness  of  the  summer  season,  and  thus  it  has  no  great 
importance  to  man. 

As  a  whole,  the  rivers  of  the  Pacific  coast  and  the 
lands  which  border  them  are  a  less  conspicuous  feature 
of  the  country  than  those  near  the  Atlantic  shore  or 
in  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  The  reason  for  this 
seems  to  be  that  this  western  district  has  been  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  ages  since  it  became  firm  land,  as  it 
is  now,  except  near  the  sea-shore,  a  field  in  which  little 
rain  falls.  Consequently  few  river  valleys  have  been 
formed,  and  these  not  of  great  size. 

We  now  come  to  the  great  central  system  of  the  con~ 
tinent,  that  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  This  vast  stream 
has  its  tributaries  situated  partly  in  the  eastern  portion 
of  the  Cordilleras,  partly  in  the  western  portion  of  the 
Appalachians,  and  in  part  they  flow  from  the  low  water 
shed  which  separates  the  Mississippi  Valley  from  that 
portion  of  the  continent  which  drains  towards  the  high 
north.  Only  the  head-waters  of  the  Mississippi  on  the 
east  and  west  flow  in  mountainous  gorges  or  canons. 
Throughout  by  far  the  greater  portions  of  their  course 
the  principal  affluents  traverse  a  wide  region  underlaid 
by  horizontal  rocks  which  have  a  generally  plane  surface. 
Almost  everywhere  the  branches  of  these  great  tribu- 


112  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

taries,  as  well  as  the  larger  stream,  are  more  or  less 
navigable  from  the  border  of  the  mountains  downward 
to  the  sea.  Except  the  river  system  of  the  Amazon, 
that  of  the  Mississippi  has  a  greater  stretch  of  shores 
naturally  accessible  to  vessels  of  considerable  draught 
than  any  other  in  the  world.  Unlike  the  Amazon,  whose 
waters  lie  altogether  within  the  tropics  and  afford  no 
great  range  of  climatal  conditions,  those  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  course  through  regions  which  have  great  variety 
of  temperature  and  rainfall.  The  upper  Missouri  trav 
erses  a  very  arid  country,  the  upper  Mississippi  a  region 
of  cold  climate,  while  the  lower  portion  of  the  main 
stream  flows  through  lands  where  oranges  will  grow  in 
the  open  air. 

As  a  whole,  the  continent  of  North  America  is  pecul 
iarly  well  watered  by  rivers,  and  the  streams  are  so 
placed  as  to  be  of  great  value  for  the  uses  of  commerce. 
South  America  rivals  it  in  the  extent  of  its  uninterrupted 
navigable  waters.  The  rivers  of  this  southern  continent 
are,  however,  mostly  in  the  tropics,  and  have  a  climate 
unfavorable  for  the  uses  of  people  of  European  origin. 
Africa  has  more  great  streams  than  North  America,  but 
the  greatest  of  them  are  in  the  tropics,  and  they  are  all 
much  obstructed  by  rapids  in  the  lower  part  of  their 
paths.  The  rivers  of  Asia  afford  in  the  aggregate  more 
navigable  water  than  those  of  North  America,  but  sev 
eral  of  the  most  important  fall  mto  the  Arctic  Ocean, 
and  have  only  a  limited  value  for  human  use. 

THE    FORESTS    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

To  primitive  savages  dense  forests  do  not  afford 
advantageous  places  of  abode.  They  contain  less  game 
than  more  open  countries.  Only  a  few  of  their  species 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  113 

yield  nutritious  fruits  or  seeds,  and  the  close-set  trees 
are  hard  to  clear  away  when  it  is  desired  to  use  the 
ground  for  agriculture.  Even  the  pioneers  of  our  own 
race  find  dense  woods  a  serious  obstacle.  When  the 
trees  are  cut  off,  the  roots  are  in  the  way  of  the  plough, 
and,  however  fertile  the  soil,  it  is  often  half  a  lifetime 
before  the  farmer  has  good  fields.  The  prairies  are 
much  better  for  the  needs  of  the  first  settlers  of  a 
country  than  the  dense  woodlands. 

The  natural  use  of  woods  is  mainly  to  store  the  rain 
water  in  the  mass  of  decayed  matter  which  rests  about 
their  roots,  which  water,  yielded  slowly  to  the  streams, 
diminishes  the  force  of  the  winter  torrents  and  main 
tains  the  flow  through  the  summer  season.  To  man 
they  become  most  important  when  population  is  dense, 
and  there  is  a  great  demand  for  timber  for  house-build 
ing  and  other  purposes.  In  the  prairie  countries  the 
narrow  strips  of  forest  along  the  streams  serve  for  the 
needs  of  house-building  and  for  firewood,  and  the  farmer 
finds  it  greatly  to  his  advantage  to  have  land  so  open 
that  he  can  set  his  plough  in  the  virgin  soil  and  run 
it  straight  away  for  miles  without  hindrance. 

The  forests  of  North  America  at  the  time  when  the 
country  was  settled  by  Europeans  were  probably  more 
continuous  than  the  first  men  found  in  any  other  of  the 
great  lands  except  Europe.  On  the  eastern  part  of 
the  continent,  extending  from  Central  Texas  north  to 
near  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  with  the  Mississippi, 
thence  eastward  along  the  southern  border  of  that  river, 
and  northward  to  the  Laurentian  Mountains  north  of 
Lake  Erie,  was  the  western  margin  of  the  great 
Appalachian  forest  which  covered  all  the  country  east 
of  the  above-described  lines,  except  a  few  small  areas 


114  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

in  Kentucky,  North  Carolina,  and  perhaps  some  other 
states  where  the  Indians  had  destroyed  the  woods  by 
fire.  This  region  is  remarkable  for  the  very  great  num 
ber  of  broad-leaved  trees  which  it  contains,  and  for  the 
noble  dimensions  to  which  many  of  these  species  grow. 
The  oaks,  maples,  tulip  trees,  magnolias,  walnuts,  and 
a  number  of  other  genera  attain  here  a  measure  of  de 
velopment  unknown  to  other  countries.  In  fact,  this 
field  holds  the  noblest  forests  of  such  trees  which  are 
known  in  the  world.  In  Europe,  at  a  time  not  long 
before  the  glacial  period,  many  trees  akin  to  the  species 
which  are  now  characteristic  of  North  America  flour 
ished.  Thus  we  find  the  leaves  of  the  sassafrases,  tulip 
trees,  and  other  kinds  now  characteristic  of  North 
America,  in  the  miocene  tertiary  beds  of  Switzerland 
and  Germany,  although  the  forms  have  long  since  dis 
appeared  from  the  European  forests. 

By  no  means  the  whole  of  this  great  Appalachian 
woodland  is  composed  of  broad-leaved  trees,  although 
the  species  of  this  group  occupy  the  larger  part  of  its 
surface.  The  western  border  of  the  field,  the  portion 
of  it  in  Ohio,  Central  and  Western  Kentucky,  Western 
Tennessee,  and  thence  south  to  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi,  contains  a  few  narrow-leaved  forms,  such  as  our 
pines,  firs,  hemlocks,  and  cedars  ;  but  in  the  mountain 
ous  parts  of  the  Appalachian  forests,  and  the  level  land 
between  the  Blue  Ridge  range  and  the  sea,  narrow- 
leaved  share  the  ground  with  the  broad-leaved  forms. 
There  are  areas  of  a  thousand  square  miles  in  extent  in 
this  region  which  are  mainly  held  by  pines  or  firs ;  but 
generally  the  two  groups  link  their  boughs  together  in  a 
common  forest.  This  mixture  of  vegetation  of  diverse 
kinds  is  most  common  in  the  mountainous  country. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  115 

On  the  plains  broad  and  narrow  leaved  trees  generally 
possess  different  fields. 

In  no  other  part  of  the  temperate  zone  are  the  timber 
trees  so  varied  or  so  useful  to  man  as  they  are  here.  It 
is  only  in  the  tropics  that  a  greater  range  of  useful 
woods  is  found.  The  result  is  that  for  two  centuries 
timber  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  articles  of 
export  from  this  part  of  the  continent,  the  European 
market  having  been  to  a  great  extent  supplied  from  this 
field. 

As  we  go  northward  in  the  Appalachian  forest  and 
approach  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  the  number  of  the 
narrow-leaved  trees,  as  well  as  the  variety  of  species, 
gradually  diminishes.  North  of  that  river  firs  begin  to 
predominate ;  but  before  we  attain  the  summit  of  the 
low  Laurentian  Mountains,  the  Arctic  cold  begins  to 
stunt  the  growth  of  all  the  arboreal  vegetation.  North 
and  northwest  of  this  region,  though  forest  trees  con 
tinue  to  occupy  the  surface,  their  trunks  are  short  and 
of  small  size,  so  that  they  have  little  value  for  construc 
tion  timber.  Around  by  the  north  the  Appalachian 
wood  is  connected  by  scant  forests  with  extensive  rocky 
fields  and  prairie-like  intervals  of  open  land  to  the  wood 
land  district  of  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  woods  of  the  Pacific  coast,  at  least  those  that  are 
of  such  density  that  they  deserve  the  name  of  forests, 
begin  in  California  as  a  narrow  fringe  along  the  coast 
line  where  the  rainfall  is  sufficient  to  maintain  them, 
and  extend  thence  northwardly  in  a  widening  belt  until, 
in  the  southern  part  of  British  America,  the  forest  dis 
trict  occupies  the  most  of  the  region  between  the  crest 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  sea.  Thence  to  the 
northward  the  trees  begin  to  shrink  under  the  influence 


Il6  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

of  the  cold,  until  in  Alaska  they  have  a  stunted  charac 
ter.  The  field  occupied  by  well-grown  trees  extends, 
however,  for  near  a  thousand  miles  farther  north  on  the 
western  shore  of  the  continent  than  it  does  upon  the 
eastern.  This  difference  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Pa 
cific  shore  is  warmed  by  a  great  ocean  stream,  while 
the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence  is 
the  seat  of  a  cold  current  coming  from  the  Arctic 
regions.  These  streams  of  the  sea  affect  the  climate 
of  the  neighboring  land. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  Pacific-coast  forest  that  it 
is  mainly  composed  of  narrow-leaved  trees  which  bear 
cones  in  the  manner  of  our  firs  and  pines.  Among 
these  the  sequoia  is  one  of  the  greatest  trees  of  the 
world,  being  only  exceeded  in  height  by  some  of  the 
eucalyptus  trees  of  Australia.  In  average  girth  they 
probably  surpass  any  other  giants  of  the  forest.  This 
magnificent  species  is  now  nearly  extinct,  the  woods  in 
which  it  occurs  occupying  in  all  only  a  few  square  miles 
of  area.  Another  species,  the  redwood,  a  kind  of  fir, 
forms  enormous  forests,  doubtless  the  noblest  woods  of 
coniferous  trees  now  existing  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth. 

Between  the  eastern  margin  of  the  Pacific  forest  and 
the  western  border  of  the  Appalachian  timbered  coun 
try,  occupying  in  general  the  western  half  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  and  much  of  the  fordilleran  district  where 
the  waters  drain  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  we  find  a  vast 
territory  where  the  forests  are  very  scant  or  entirely 
wanting.  Here  and  there  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  in 
places  where  from  the  position  of  the  elevations  in  rela 
tion  to  the  winds  there  is  more  rainfall,  we  have  con 
siderable  areas  of  wood,  and  almost  everywhere  along 


PALMETTO,    FLORIDA. 


[page  117 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  117 

the  streams  there  is  a  narrow  belt  of  thin  forests  in  the 
naturally  irrigated  lands.  It  seems  likely  that  when 
this  continent  was  first  occupied  by  man  a  large  part 
of  this  unwooded  area  was  forest-clad.  It  was  a  com 
mon  habit  with  our  aborigines  to  set  fire  to  the  under 
growth  in  order  that  after  the  conflagration  the  fresh 
growth  of  vegetation  might  afford  good  pasturage  for 
the  deer  and  buffalo.  In  this  way  the  young  forest  trees 
were  killed  so  that  when  the  larger  plants  of  the  species 
perished  from  old  age,  there  were  none  to  succeed  them. 

Unfortunately  the  habit  of  burning  the  woods  is  com 
mon  with  civilized  men  as  well  as  with  savages,  and 
much  of  this  destruction  by  fire  has  taken  place  since 
the  country  was  settled  by  the  whites.  A  more  extended 
and  deliberate  destruction  of  the  woods,  particularly  those 
of  the  Appalachian  forests,  has  necessarily  been  brought 
about  in  order  to  secure  tilled  fields.  Probably  about 
three  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  what  was  dense 
woodland  three  hundred  years  ago  is  now  tilled  land. 

Certain  American  forest  trees,  and  other  woodland 
plants  not  noted  in  the  preceding  description,  deserve 
especial  mention.  In  the  tropical  portion  of  the  con 
tinent  several  species  of  palms  are  tolerably  abundant, 
particularly  near  the  shore.  Some  of  these  species  are 
native,  but  others  have  been  brought  to  this  country 
from  South  America  and  the  Old  World.  Only  one  im 
portant  group  of  palms,  the  palmettos,  naturally  dwell 
within  the  United  States.  These  palmettos,  of  which 
the  larger  varieties  attain  the  height  of  thirty  feet,  are 
abundant  in  Florida,  and  occur  along  the  Atlantic  coast 
as  far  north  as  the  southeastern  corner  of  North  Caro 
lina.  This  variety  of  palm  is  often  called  the  cabbage 
tree,  for  the  reason  that  the  large  unopen  bud  at  the 


Il8      THE  PRESENT  GEOGRAPHIC  CONDITION 

top  of  the  stem  somewhat  resembles  that  vegetable  and 
is  often  cooked  for  food. 

The  live-oak,  so  called  because  it  is  never  without 
green  leaves,  ranges  from  Cape  Hatteras  southward 
through  the  southern  portion  of  the  Gulf  states  to  Cen 
tral  Texas.  This  tree  rarely  grows  in  the  dense  forests, 
but  prefers  a  somewhat  open  country,  where,  when  well 
grown,  it  forms  noble  domes  of  foliage.  The  wood  is 
of  remarkable  strength  and  endurance,  affording  a  very 
valuable  ship-timber,  much  of  which  is  exported  to 
Europe. 

In  the  Southern  states  of  the  Federal  Union  and 
thence  southward  to  Central  America,  all  the  swamps 
contain  a  species  of  cone-bearing,  narrow-leaved  tree 
known  as  the  taxodium,  or  bald  cypress.  This,  also,  is  a 
very  noble  tree,  not  infrequently  having  a  trunk  as  much 
as  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  and  without  a  branch  for  about 
a  hundred  feet  in  height.  This  plant  is  peculiar,  in  that 
from  the  roots  which  lie  below  the  water  of  the  swamp 
there  arise  spur-like  projections  often  to  the  height  of 
five  or  six  feet  above  the  soil.  Each  of  these  projec 
tions,  which  are  termed  knees,  has,  when  full-grown,  a 
bulb-shaped  excrescence  on  its  summit,  which  is  covered 
with  soft  bark  and  is  hollow  within.  They  are  so  large, 
that  they  are  often  used  for  well-buckets  or  beehives. 
These  curious  structures  appear  to  serve  to  give  the 
sap  of  the  roots  a  chance  to  come  in  contact  with  the 
air ;  for  whenever,  as  by  the  construction  of  a  mill-dam, 
or  the  downsinking  of  the  land  during  an  earthquake, 
the  caps  of  the  knees  are  brought  below  the  level  of  the 
water  during  the  summer  season,  the  tree  dies. 

Another  American  tree,  the  sassafras,  though  not  of 
large  growth,  is  worthy  of  notice,  for  the  reason  that  it 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  I IQ 

played  an  important  part  in  the  commerce  of  the  coun 
try  for  some  time  after  its  settlement  by  the  whites. 
The  bark  of  this  tree,  especially  that  of  the  roots,  has 
a  very  aromatic  flavor.  This  caused  the  plant  to  be 
much  prized  on  account  of  its  supposed  medicinal  vir 
tues.  For  a  long  time  great  quantities  of  it  were 
shipped  to  European  markets.  The  Diospyros,  the  per 
simmon  or  date-plum,  a  species  of  the  ebony  family,  a 
group  characteristic  of  the  tropics,  is  abundantly  devel 
oped  in  the  Southern  states,  and  scantily  so  as  far  north 
as  Rhode  Island  and  Iowa.  It  bears  quantities  of  fruit 
about  the  size  and  shape  of  plums.  This  fruit  is  ex 
tremely  bitter  and  astringent  until  affected  by  the  frosts 
of  autumn,  when  it  becomes  sweet  and  palatable.  It 
was  much  eaten  by  the  savages  and  wild  animals,  and  is 
not  disdained  by  civilized  man.  In  the  Southern  states 
considerable  quantities  of  fermented  liquor  are  made 
from  it.  This  is  sometimes  distilled  for  brandy. 

The  paw-paw,  or  custard-apple,  a  single  member  of 
a  tropical  family  found  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States,  extends  from  New  York  and  Southeastern  Ne 
braska  to  near  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  It  is  a  low,  bushy 
tree  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  in  height,  bearing  a 
large,  many-seeded  fruit  from  three  to  six  inches  in 
length  and  one  or  two  inches  in  diameter,  which  is 
much  eaten,  and  is  sometimes  distilled  for  spirits. 

The  trees  and  shrubs  of  the  holly  family,  a  group  of 
plants  which  retain  their  glossy  foliage  in  winter  and 
bear  bright  scarlet  berries,  are  also  well  developed  in  the 
southern  portion  of  the  great  Appalachian  forest.  The 
largest  of  these  species,  commonly  known  as  the  Ameri 
can  holly,  attains  on  the  southwestern  border  of  that 
eastern  timber-belt  a  height  of  from  forty  to  sixty  feet, 


I2O  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

and  has  a  smooth-bark  trunk  a  foot  or  more  in  diameter. 
Its  wood  is  of  a  dense  texture  and  a  white  color,  — quali 
ties  which  make  it  greatly  prized  in  certain  constructions. 
One  of  the  species  of  American  holly,  which  bears  the 
Indian  name  of  yaupon,  was  much  used  by  the  savages 
of  the  Carolina  district  in  making  what  the  early  explor 
ers  called  their  "  black  drink  "  :  a  decoction  of  its  leaves 
still  serves  as  a  tea  with  the  whites  of  that  country. 

The  species  of  the  ginseng  family,  a  group  of  peren 
nial  rooted  plants,  one  species  of  which  sometimes 
grows  in  the  form  of  a  low  tree,  abounds  throughout 
the  Appalachian  forest.  It  is  interesting  for  the  rea 
son  that  its  roots  are  very  extensively  collected  and 
exported  to  China,  where  they  are  used  for  medicinal 
purposes,  as  they  are  also  in  a  small  way  in  this  country. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  singular  features  in  the  commerce 
of  this  country  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  most  remote 
settlements  in  the  Appalachian  district  gain  most  of 
their  ready  money  from  the  sale  of  a  natural  product 
which  is  principally  consumed  in  the  far-away  Celestial 
Empire. 

Other  groups  of  trees,  less  peculiar,  but  still  of  con 
spicuous  features,  are  developed  in  North  America. 
Among  these  we  may  name  the  tulip  tree  and  the  mag 
nolias.  The  tulip  tree,  known  by  many  different  local 
names,  is  perhaps  the  noblest  of  the  broad-leaved  Ameri 
can  trees.  It  sometimes  attains  the  height  of  near  two 
hundred  feet,  with  a  trunk  diameter  of  six  or  eight  feet. 
It  has  beautiful  broad  leaves,  and  flowers,  as  the  name 
indicates,  shaped  like  those  of  the  tulip.  The  magnolias 
are  represented  by  many  species  :  they  also  have  very 
broad  glossy  leaves  which  in  some  species  remain  all 
winter  upon  the  plant.  They  have  beautiful  flowers 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  121 

of  large  size  and  a  whitish  color.  The  magnolias  are 
mainly  limited  to  the  Southern  states,  but  one  of  the 
species  ranges  as  far  north  as  Massachusetts.  In  the 
mountain  valleys  of  the  southern  Appalachian  Moun 
tains  is  another  interesting  tree,  the  stuartia,  closely 
akin  to  the  camelias  of  Eastern  Asia. 

As  a  whole,  the  American  forests  are  much  like 
those  of  Europe,  except  that  they  contain  many  more 
kinds  of  trees  than  do  those  of  the  Old  World.  This 
great  variety  gives  our  forests  east  of  the  Mississippi 
a  richness  and  diversified  foliage  unknown  to  any  other 
region  beyond  the  tropics. 

PRAIRIES. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  North 
America  is  the  wide  extent  of  the  very  level  lands 
lying  between  the  Appalachian  and  Laurentian  Moun 
tains  on  the  east,  and  the  Cordilleras  on  the  west,  occu 
pying  by  far  the  larger  part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and 
extending  northward  towards  the  Arctic  Sea.  Nearly 
all  this  area  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  south  of  British 
America,  as  well  as  the  larger  part  of  Indiana,  Illinois, 
and  a  portion  of  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  was  originally,  and 
mostly  yet  remains,  without  forest  trees,  except  along 
the  streams.  There  were  also  some  treeless  tracts  of 
considerable  area  in  the  country  farther  to  the  east  and 
south.  These  areas  of  open  country  were  termed  by 
the  early  French  settlers  of  the  Mississippi  Valley 
prairies,  the  word  designating  in  the  French  language 
what  we  term  meadow-land. 

These  prairies  were  the  seat  of  a  dense  growth  of 
plants,  largely  grasses,  which  had  no  permanent  stems, 
but  with  tops  which  dried  away  in  the  winter  season. 


122  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

When  set  on  fire  by  the  Indians,  the  flames  would  often 
run  through  this  dried  grass  for  scores  of  miles,  destroy 
ing  any  young  trees  which  might  have  sprung  up,  and 
thus  limiting  the  forest  to  the  damp  margins  of  the 
streams.  Besides  the  grasses,  these  prairies  generally 
abounded  in  beautiful  flowers.  Many  species  belonging 
to  the  family  of  the  Composites,  the  kindred  of  the  sun 
flowers  and  daisies,  attained  a  most  luxuriant  growth  in 
this  open  country. 

The  prairies  have  played  an  important  part  in  the 
history  of  North  America.  Owing  to  their  wide  extent 
and  hard  surface  they  shed  the  rain  quickly  to  the 
streams  and  cause  those  water-ways  to  be  alternately 
flooded  and  nearly  dry.  In  the  days  when  they  were 
occupied  by  the  Indians  they  afforded  rich  pasturage  to 
innumerable  herds  of  buffalo,  elk,  and  deer,  —  creatures 
which  in  their  abundance  induced  the  savages  to  retain, 
or  adopt,  the  wandering  habits  of  the  hunter  rather  than 
to  seek  subsistence  in  the  more  elevated  occupation  of 
the  husbandman.  When  the  whites  came  to  the  prairie 
country,  they  found  the  soil  surpassingly  fertile  and  very 
easily  won  to  the  plough.  For  the  first  hundred  and 
fifty  years  after  the  English  settlements  were  founded 
in  North  America  the  farmers  had  to  struggle  with  the 
dense  forest,  each  acre  of  which  required  about  fifty 
days  of  labor  before  it  could  be  made  fit  for  ploughing. 
When  in  the  beginning  of  this  century  our  people  came 
to  this  open  ground,  they  found  r*elds  of  rich  and  virgin 
soil  lying  wide  open  before  them.  A  large  part  of  the 
growth  which  the  population  and  wealth  of  this  country 
has  made  during  Jthe  present  century,  has  been  due  to 
the  readiness  with  which  these  soils  of  the  prairies  can 
be  brought  to  yield  a  crop.  The  prairies  are  particu- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  123 

larly  suited  for  grain  crops,  and  their  vast  harvests  of 
this  staple  food  have  long  been  the  source  of  a  great 
export  trade  with  Europe. 

Although  the  soil  of  the  prairies  is  at  first  extremely 
fertile,  often  yielding  as  much  as  forty  bushels  of  wheat 
to  the  acre  when  first  brought  under  the  plough,  they 
unfortunately  do  not  retain  their  fertility  for  any  great 
time.  In  the  course  of  thirty  years  the  average  yield  of 
wheat  is  reduced  to  about  half  the  original  quantity. 
This  part  of  the  country  suffers  under  certain  disadvan 
tages  of  climate.  East'  of  the  Mississippi  the  rainfall 
is  tolerably  abundant  and  constant  from  year  to  year. 
A  little  west  of  that  stream  the  prairies  come  to  feel  the 
arid  conditions  of  the  Cordilleran  district,  and  for  more 
than  half  their  area  from  Central  Texas  and  Central 
Kansas  westward,  droughts  make  tillage  hazardous.  In 
fact,  more  than  half  of  the  Western  plains  cannot  be 
trusted  to-produce  good  crops  without  irrigation. 

CLIMATE. 

The  climate  of  any  country  is  determined  by  the  pro 
portion  of  heat,  moisture,  wind,  sunshine,  and  clouds 
which  occur  there,  on  the  proportion  of  these  at  differ 
ent  seasons,  and  even  at  different  times  in  the  days  of 
the  year.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  there  is  no  definite 
thing  which  can  be  termed  the  climate  of  an  extended 
region,  as  all  these  elements  which  go  to  give  character 
to  the  weather  constitute  its  climate.  Between  the  top 
and  bottom  of  any  hill  a  thousand  feet  high  there  is 
usually  a  distinct  difference  in  all  these  features,  which 
shows  itself  in  the  variation  in  the  plants.  The  north 
side  of  such  a  hill  will  have  one  climate,  and  the  south 
side,  at  the  same  level,  another ;  even  on  the  sunshiny 


124  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

and  shady  sides  of  a  house  or  a  large  tree  we  may  find 
differences  in  condition  which  are  in  fact  of  a  climatal 
nature.  Thus  it  is  not  possible  to  regard  the  climate 
of  a  country  as  a  matter  common  to  all  of  its  parts,  or 
even  to  a  very  small  portion  of  its  surface.  Still  there 
are  certain  general  features  of  the  climate  of  North 
America  which  deserve  attention,  and  will  now  be 
described. 

This  continent  is  a  very  much  more  united  land  than 
either  Europe  or  Asia  ;  it  has  few  great  peninsulas, 
and  its  inland  seas  are  not  large  as  compared  with  those 
of  the  Old  World ;  as  we  have  already  seen,  it  is  not 
divided  in  an  east  and  west  direction  by  any  high  moun 
tains.  The  Laurentian  ranges,  the  only  considerable 
elevations  which  run  in  an  east  and  west  direction, 
ceased  to  grow  upwards  in  a  very  ancient  time,  and 
have  been  gradually  worn  down  to  their  very  roots  by 
the  action  of  rain  and  ice.  There  are  thus  no  such 
great  barriers  between  the  Arctic  cold  and  tropic  heat 
as  are  formed  by  the  Pyrenees,  Alps,  Caucasus,  or 
Himalayas  of  the  Old  World.  Hence  it  comes  about 
that  the  summers  of  this  continent  are  generally  very 
warm  even  as  far  north  as  the  Arctic  Circle,  while  the 
winter  cold  extends  far  to  the  south.  This  extreme 
contrast  between  the  principal  seasons  is  in  the  main 
due  to  the  shape  of  the  surface  of  the  continent. 

We  have  remarked  the  fact  that  North  America  has  a 
very  highly  elevated  mass  of  mountains  and  table-lands 
on  its  western  side,  and  a  considerable  system  of  eleva 
tions  on  the  eastern  border,  with  a  very  wide  continen 
tal  valley  between  these  highlands.  These  elevations 
to  a  great  extent  fence  out  the  interior  parts  of  the  con 
tinent  from  the  seaboard  region  and  deprive  it  of  a  por- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  125 

tion  of  the  moisture  as  well  as  of  the  cool  air  which  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  would  otherwise  send  to  it. 
Thus,  though  this  continent  lies  between  the  two  greater 
oceans,  it  is  in  its  interior  region  relatively  little  affected 
by  their  influence.  The  Gulf  of  Mexico  has  more  effect 
on  the  climate  of  this  central  trough  of  the  continent 
than  either  the  Atlantic  or  Pacific.  Being  a  very  warm 
sea,  and  having  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  wide  open 
on  its  north,  and  the  prevailing  winds  being  such  as  to 
carry  the  warm  and  moist  airs  from  it  into  the  interior 
of  the  continent,  it  affords  an  abundant  rainfall  to  a 
wide  field  of  land  which  would  otherwise  be  exceedingly 
dry.  The  effect  of  this  gulf  is  felt  upon  all  the  central 
and  eastern  part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and.  it  is 
probably  not  without  influence  on  the  climate  of  regions 
to  the  north  of  the  Great  Lakes. 

Owing  to  the  exclusion  of  the  moist  air  of  the  neigh 
boring  oceans,  together  with  the  heat  and  dryness  of 
the  summers,  the  mountains  of  North  America  have  few 
fields  of  perpetual  snow  except  in  the  region  about 
Alaska.  This  is  the  only  part  of  the  continent  in  cold 
regions  which  has  a  warm  ocean  stream  flowing  against 
its  shores.  The  Japan  current,  sometimes  known  as 
the  Kuro  Siwo,  sends  a  large  volume  of  moderately 
warm  water  against  these  Alaskan  shores.  The  effect 
is  to  cause  a  great  snowfall  in  the  highlands,  and  this 
not  melting  away  in  the  cloudy  summer  time,  forms 
great  ice-streams  which  flow  down  the  mountain  valleys 
into  the  sea.  This  is  the  only  part  of  the  mainland 
of  North  America  which  has  large  glaciers ;  but  smaller 
fields  of  ice  which  withstand  the  summer  heats  are  found 
at  several  points  in  the  Cordilleras  south  of  Alaska, 
some  of  considerable  size  in  the  portion  of  that  moun- 


126  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

tain  district  which  lies  within  the  limits  of  Canada,  and 
a  few  of  lesser  extent  in  the  northern  part  of  that  field 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States. 

In  Switzerland,  and  most  other  countries  where  gla 
ciers  abound,  they  are  fed  from  fields  of  perpetual  snow 
which  cover  the  upper  parts  of  the  mountains  and 
slowly  creep  down,  becoming  more  compact  as  they 
move  onward,  until  they  finally  take  shape  as  streams  of 
ice  to  be  melted  in  the  warm  air  of  the  lower  valleys. 
But  in  the  case  of  the  small  glaciers  of  the  United 
States,  where  there  are  no  extended  fields  of  enduring 
snow,  the  glaciers  are  principally  fed  by  the  snow  which 
in  the  winter  season  drifts  into  the  valleys  and  accumu 
lates  there  to  a  great  depth.  Where  such  snow  lies  for 
a  long  time  in  this  heaped  condition,  it  passes  into  the 
state  of  whitish  ice.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  western 
portion  of  the  Cordilleras  that  a  great  deal  of  snow  falls 
in  winter,  but  it  melts  away  except  in  the  drift-heaps  of 
the  narrow  and  very  elevated  valleys,  during  the  heats 
of  summer. 

Although  the  continental  portion  of  North  America 
has  on  the  whole  less  glacial  ice  than  either  of  the  other 
northern  lands,  the  island  or  peninsula  of  Greenland, 
which  is  an  appendage  of  this  continent,  is  the  greatest 
known  district  of  glaciers,  being  possibly  exceeded  in 
the  depth  and  width  of  its  ice-fields  only  by  the  almost 
unknown  lands  about  the  South  Pole.  In  Greenland 
the  whole  of  the  surface  except  t-he  southern  extremity 
and  a  strip  of  land  along  the  east  and  west  shores  is 
continuously  covered  with  an  ice-sheet  which  is  so  deep 
that  it  hides  the- whole  surface.  Along  the  shores  of 
the  land  this  glacier  is  broken  by  fissures,  as  in  similar 
sheets  in  other  countries,  but  in  the  interior,  a  few  miles 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  I2/ 

back  from  this  point,  it  exhibits  a  gentle  continuous 
slope  extending  up  to  the  height  of  several  thousand 
feet  above  the  shore,  and  then  gently  declining  towards 
the  sea  on  the  other  side  of  the  peninsula.  Around  the 
margin  of  vast  glacial  fields  the  ice,  descending  through 
the  valleys,  passes  into  the  sea.  Being  somewhat  lighter 
than  the  water  into  which  it  enters,  and  also  being  much 
rifted  by  crevices,  the  ends  of  these  glaciers  break  off 
and  float  away  to  the  southward.  These  icebergs,  as 
the  floating  fragments  from  the  glacial  field  are  called, 
are  often  two  or  three  thousand  feet  thick  and  contain 
several  cubic  miles  of  ice. 

The  deep  currents  of  the  sea,  moving  southward  to 
replace  in  the  equatorial  regions  the  water  which  flows 
northward  from  that  region  in  the  Gulf  Stream,  drag 
these  icebergs  for  a  great  distance  southward.  They 
often  journey  for  a  thousand  miles  or  more  towards 
the  equator  before  the  heat  of  the  water  and  the  air 
melts  them  away.  These  great  fleets  of  icebergs  often 
come  directly  in  the  path  of  ships  passing  from  the 
ports  of  America  to  England  and  Germany,  and  are  the 
source  of  much  danger  to  these  vessels.  Each  of  these 
great  floating  ice-islands  carries  with  it  a  store  of  the 
cold  of  the  Arctic  regions.  It  cools  the  water  of  the  sea 
all  about  it,  and  the  air  as  well.  The  result  is  that  the 
winds  which  blow  from  over  this  ocean  to  the  neighbor 
ing  lands  are  colder  than  they  otherwise  would  be. 

Another  stream  of  cold  water  from  the  ice-laden 
regions  of  Baffin's  Bay  and  Hudson's  Strait  moves  down 
the  shore,  passing  by  Labrador,  Newfoundland,  and 
Nova  Scotia,  as  far  south  as  Cape  Cod  ;  and  this  cold 
water  much  affects  the  climate  of  this  portion  of  the 
shore-lands  of  North  America.  Wherever  the  winds 


128  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

blow  over  it  to  the  coast,  they  bring  a  remarkable  cool 
ness  even  in  the  hottest  part  of  the  summer.  A  similar 
result  is  brought  about  by  the  current  which  sets  south 
ward  along  the  Pacific  coast  from  the  cold  regions  of 
the  sea  about  Alaska.  This  stream  extends  down  as  far 
as  Southern  California,  becoming  warmer  as  it  goes. 
The  winds  which  blow  over  it  to  the  land  are  always 
much  cooler  than  they  would  be  if  there  was  no  such 
continued  inflowing  of  these  Arctic  waters. 

Thus  we  perceive  that  this  continent  has  the  greater 
part  of  its  shores  bathed  by  chilled  waters  from  the 
Arctic  regions.  Around  by  the  Arctic  Sea  and  south 
to  Massachusetts  Bay  the  waters  of  the  sea  are  far 
colder  than  they  would  be  but  for  such  currents,  and 
the  shores  are  characterized  by  the  fact  that  the  sea- 
winds  have  a  low  temperature.  The  warm  currents  of 
the  ocean  strike  the  coasts  only  in  the  regions  about 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  also  in 
the  region  about  Alaska.  In  the  last-named  district  the 
current,  having  traversed  a  great  distance  under  north 
ern  skies,  is  only  moderately  warm,  yet  it  gives  to  the 
shore-land  region  of  Alaska  a  climate  a  good  deal  milder 
than  that  of  Labrador,  which  is  situated  much  farther 
to  the  south.  The  result  of  this  distribution  of  the 
warm  currents,  together  with  the  absence  of  mountain 
barriers  to  the  polar  winds,  is  that  the  winter  in  the 
northern  half  of  the  continent  is  very  cold. 

In  the  southern  portion  of  the  continent  the  winter 
season  is  milder,  but  clown  to  the  line  of  Mexico  and 
Northern  Florida  strong  winds  from  the  north  may  at 
times  bring  a  bitter  cold  air.  Southern  Florida  and  the 
narrow  lands  of  Mexico  and  the  peninsula  district  near 
South  America,  lying  between  warm  seas  and  with  a  cli- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

mate  controlled  by  their  warmth,  are  the  only  portions 
of  the  mainland  where  winter  frosts  do  not  frequently 
occur  on  the  lowlands.  If  there  were  a  range  of  moun 
tains,  such  as  the  Pyrenees  or  the  Alps,  extending  from 
east  to  west  across  the  northern  border  of  the  United 
States,  the  region  to  the  south  of  the  barrier  would  have 
a  much  more  equable  climate  than  it  actually  has. 

The  most  important  determining  feature  in  the  cli 
mate  of  North  America  is  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  This 
great  sea,  receiving  the  heated  waters  of  the  Gulf 
Stream,  has  a  high  temperature,  and  because  of  its  heat 
sends  a  great  deal  of  vapor  into  the  air  which  blows 
over  it.  It  is  the  rain  from  the  clouds  of  the  Gulf  which 
seems  to  fertilize  the  greater  part  of  the  habitable  por 
tion  of  the  continent,  —  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Atlantic  lowlands.  In  former  geological  ages  this 
sea,  at"  first  a  great  strait  extending  to  the  ocean  of  high 
latitudes,  exercised  much  more  influence  on  North 
American  climate  than  it  does  at  present :  it  has  been 
gradually  narrowing  in  the  northward  until  it  is  but  a 
fraction  of  what  it  once  was. 

Indian  Summer.  —  At  the  close  of  the  long,  hot,  and 
rather  tempestuous  summer  season  which  characterizes 
nearly  the  whole  of  North  America  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  there  commonly  comes  a  time  of  drought 
extending  from  about  the  first  of  September  until  the 
winter  rains  set  in  in  November  or  December.  Exten 
sive  forest  and  prairie  fires  occur  at  this  season,  which 
often  fill  the  air  over  a  large  part  of  the  continent  with 
a  hazy  smoke.  As  there  is  not  much  wind  to  blow  it 
away  at  this  season,  this  smoke-laden  condition  of  the 
air  often  continues  for  weeks.  The  lack  of  wind  and 
the  envelope  of  smoke  are  apt  to  make  the  temperature 


I3O  THE    PRESENT   GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

high,  and  so  this  period  of  cloudless  but  darkened  skies 
has  received  the  name  of  Indian  summer.  Frequently 
portions  of  the  air  become  so  filled  with  the  fumes  from 
the  burning  woods  as  to  hide  the  sun.  Drifting  slowly 
across  the  country,  these  masses  of  smoke  sometimes, 
and  in  a  very  sudden  manner,  bring  a  temporary  dark 
ness  as  of  midnight  over  the  sky  of  midday.  There  are 
a  number  of  such  dark  days  chronicled  in  different  parts 
of  the  eastern  United  States.  In  certain  cases  the 
incidents  have  been  appalling  to  the  people. 

VIOLENT    STORMS. 

The  fitness  of  any  country  for  the  uses  of  man  is  much 
affected  by  the  storms  to  which  it  is  liable.  These  acci 
dents  of  the  atmosphere  may  greatly  affect  the  inter 
ests  of  its  human  occupants  in  either  of  two  ways  :  by 
the  force  of  the  winds  they  may  endanger  ships  near  the 
shore,  or  they  may  destroy  buildings  and  crops  in  the 
interior  districts.  In  either  of  these  cases  the  visita 
tions  may  be  very  destructive  to  life. 

Owing  to  certain  physical  peculiarities,  North  Amer 
ica  is  very  liable  throughout  much  of  its  area  to  violent 
convulsions  of  the  atmosphere.  The  absence  of  great 
mountain  ranges  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  on  the 
eastern  and  northern  parts  of  the  continent,  the  exist 
ence  of  wide  treeless  plains  over  a  great  portion  of  the 
central  region,  and  the  wide  difference  in  temperature 
in  the  water  of  the  neighboring  seas,  lead  to  the  occur 
rence  of  violent  movements  of  the  air.  The  storms  of 
North  America  are  divisible  into  three  classes,  —  ordinary 
thunder-storms,  tornadoes,  and  hurricanes :  although  all 
these  classes  of  disturbances  occur  in  other  lands,  they 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  13! 

are  more  conspicuous  and  frequently  presented  in  North 
America  than  elsewhere. 

Thunder-storms  in  North  America  more  commonly 
occur  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  on  the  Atlantic  sea 
board  district.  They  are  frequently  of  great  violence, 
and  are  remarkable  for  the  very  numerous  electric  dis 
charges  which  accompany  them.  Usually  they  are  not 
complicated  with  the  other  classes  of  storms,  but  origi 
nate  in  the  hot  days  of  the  year  when  there  is  no  gen 
eral  disturbance  of  the  atmosphere.  Not  infrequently, 
however,  they  attend  the  more  serious  accidents  of  the 
air  which  belong  in  the  groups  of  tornadoes  and  hurri 
canes.  Although  violent,  these  thunder-storms  appear 
to  be  not  more  destructive  in  North  America  than  in 
Europe. 

The  group  of  atmospheric  convulsions  known  as  tor 
nadoes  are  remarkable  and  almost  peculiar  features  of 
the  North  American  climate.  These  storms  consist  in 
violent  upward-going  whirlings  of  the  atmosphere  caused 
by  the  effort  of  the  warm  air  next  the  ground  to  break 
through  the  colder  part  of  that  envelope  which  lies  a 
few  thousand  feet  above  the  surface  of  the  earth.  So 
great  is  the  violence  of  this  movement  that  heavy  bod 
ies,  even  those  which  weigh  as  much  as  a  railway  car, 
may  be  lifted  from  the  earth.  Bodies  of  cattle  or  of 
men  may  be  carried  to  the  height  of  hundreds  of  feet 
before  they  are  cast  again  upon  the  surface.  The 
strongest  trees  are  frequently  uprooted,  and  all  but  the 
most  massive  buildings,  when  they  lie  in  the  central 
path  of  the  storm,  are  apt  to  be  destroyed.  Where  they 
pass  a  pond  or  small  lake,  the  up-rushing  air  in  the  whirl 
of  the  tornado  will  sometimes  remove  all  the  water  from 
the  basin. 


132  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

Fortunately  the  destructive  path  of  these  storms  is 
very  narrow,  rarely  exceeding  two  thousand  feet,  and 
they  often  are  only  four  or  five  hundred  feet  in  width. 
In  most  cases  the  portion  of  their  course  in  which  the 
winds  are  strong  enough  to  do  much  damage  does  not 
exceed  twenty  or  thirty  miles  in  length.  -These  storms 
generally  occur  where  other  classes  of  atmospheric  dis 
turbances  moving  across  the  country  push  a  quantity 
of  cold  air  above  a  layer  of  warm  which  lies  against  the 
ground ;  this  warm  air  being  lighter  than  that  which  is 
above  it,  moves  upward  with  a  spinning  motion  much  as 
the  water  whirls  as  it  flows  through  the  hole  in  the  bot 
tom  of  a  wash-basin. 

Tornadoes  are  most  frequent  and  destructive  in  the 
parts  of  the  Ohio  Valley  which  lie  north  of  that  river, 
and  in  the  territory  adjacent  to  the  upper  Mississippi. 
They  occasionally  occur  in  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  in  the 
northern  portion  of  the  Gulf  States,  and  on  the  Atlantic 
shore-land  district  as  far  north  as  Massachusetts. 

SCENERY    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

The  aspect  which  any  country  presents  to  the  eyes  of 
men  has  much  effect  upon  their  minds.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  mountaineers  become  more  attached  to 
the  places  in  which  they  have  dwelt  than  do  the  people 
of  the  plains.  Even  the  sturdy  Swiss,  in  the  days  when 
they  were  hired  as  mercenary  soldiers  to  other  countries 
in  Europe,  often  died  from  homesickness  when  they 
were  forced  to  dwell  in  lowland  countries.  The  same 
was  true  of  the  mountaineers  of  the  southern  Appa 
lachians  during  the  late  Civil  War.  It  seems,  indeed,  to 
be  a  truth  of  importance  that  all  countries  of  picturesque 
aspect  have  an  educative  value  upon  men  who  are  bred 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  133 

in  them,  and  even  upon  those  who  by  journeys  are  able 
to  behold  their  beauty. 

As  a  whole,  the  continent  of  North  America  is  very 
much  less  picturesque  than  the  continent  of  Europe, 
whence  our  ancestors  came,  and  this  for  the  reason  that 
a  much  smaller  portion  of  its  surface  as  compared  with 
its  area  is  occupied  by  high  mountains.  Moreover,  the 
greatest  mountainous  region,  that  of  the  Cordilleras, 
the  only  one  in  which  the  elevations  attain  to  anything 
like  the  heights  they  have  in  the  Alps  or  Pyrenees,  is 
very  sterile,  with  few  streams  and  lakes,  and  with  hill 
sides  which  lack  the  associated  forests  and  meadows 
which  lend  so  much  charm  to  the  Alpine  districts. 

The  wide  fields  of  perpetual  snow,  with  their  depen 
dent  glaciers,  are  the  most  beautiful  and  ennobling 
features  which  mountains  possess.  These  are  lacking  in 
North  America,  save  in  the  coast  ranges  of  the  Cordil 
leras  north  of  Oregon,  and  in  the  frozen  deserts  of 
Greenland.  At  only  a  few  points  in  the  Cordilleras 
which  lie  within  the  United  States  do  small  snow-fields 
remain  through  the  arid  summer. 

While  in  Europe  not  more,  perhaps,  than  one-third  of 
the  surface  is  away  from  the  sight  of  high  hills  or  moun 
tains,  more  than  two-thirds  of  North  America  presents 
to  its  dwellers  the  aspect  of  a  slightly  varied  plain,  in 
which  the  streams  have  cut  but  shallow  valleys.  Even 
within  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  peaks  of  which  rise  at 
the  higher  points  to  elevations  about  as  great  as  the 
Alps  afford,  the  general  surface  of  the  country  is  so  ele 
vated  that  the  eye  rarely  perceives,  except  near  the 
Pacific  coast,  a  mountain  slope  which  from  base  to  sum 
mit  has  an  altitude  of  more  than  four  thousand  feet ; 
while  in  the  Alps  the  observer,  standing  at  the  height 


134  ™E    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

of  a  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  may  often  behold  the 
snowy  crests  rising  to  the  height  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
thousand  feet  above  his  point  of  view. 

The  coast-line  of  North  America  is  also  less  pictu 
resque  than  that  of  Europe  ;  and  this  for  the  reason 
that  the  higher  mountains  along  its  shores  do  not  come 
so  near  the  sea ;  except  in  parts  of  the  Pacific  coast 
north  of  San  Francisco  and  in  Greenland  and  Mexico, 
there  are  hardly  any  elevations  which  deserve  the  name 
of  mountains  which  are  visible  from  the  ocean  shore. 
Moreover,  there  are  no  volcanoes  in  North  America  so 
placed  as  to  give  the  charming  effects  arising  from  their 
sterile  but  beautiful  cones  placed  upon  a  luxuriant  and 
cultivated  shore,  such  as  is  afforded  by  the  Bay  of 
Naples  and  the  coast-line  near  Mt.  Etna. 

For  all  these  differences  which  exist  between  that 
most  beautiful  part  of  the  world,  the  European  conti 
nent,  where  our  race  was  cradled,  and  the  sterner  fields 
of  North  America,  we  must  not  suppose  that  our  own 
land  is  lacking  in  beauty,  or,  indeed,  in  majesty.  Each 
of  the  continents  has  peculiarities  of  form,  climate, 
or  living  inhabitants,  which  serve  to  make  the  impres 
sions  it  affords  the  eye,  though  in  themselves  beautiful, 
somewhat  different  from  those  yielded  by  other  coun 
tries.  If  the  student  has  a  true  love  of  nature,  and  will 
train  his  eye  and  mind  in  the  knowledge  and  under 
standing  of  the  earth  which  is  just  about  him,  he  will 
everywhere  gain  that  sense  of  Ue  majesty  and  beauty 
of  his  dwelling-place  which  is  the  best  fruit  of  all  the 
naturalist's  labor.  Although  the  dweller  in  the  plain- 
land  is  deprived -of  the  perpetual  charm  which  every 
morning  brings  with  the  sight  of  the  mountains,  he 
may  win  for  himself  a  nobler  impression,  one  vastly 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  135 

more  enlarging  in  every  way,  than  any  which  the  igno 
rant  mountaineer  can  possibly  receive,  by  gaining  an 
adequate  knowledge  of  the  history  which  has  led  to  the 
construction  of  the  ground  about  him. 

First  among  the  natural  attractions  which  the  scenery 
of  North  America  affords  we  may  reckon  the  forests, 
which,  as  we  have  before  noted,  have  a  splendor  un 
known  in  other  parts  of  the  temperate  zone.  Each 
species  of  tree  has  its  characteristic  elements  of  beauty 
of  form,  foliage,  or  flowers.  Whoever  has  learned  to 
appreciate  the  grace  and  dignity  of  these  trees  has 
gained  a  liberal  education  in  the  beauties  of  nature. 
Where  the  forests  are  lacking,  as  in  the  prairie  country, 
the  lesser  plants  exist  in  great  variety  and  afford  blos 
soms  of  rare  beauty.  There  are  few  sights  in  the  world 
more  charming  than  these  flowery  plains  in  the  blossom 
ing  season. 

The  rivers  -of  North  America,  owing  to  their  great 
size,  lend  an  element  of  dignity  to  many  of  its  landscapes 
which  is  too  little  appreciated  by  our  people.  The  lakes 
of  this  continent  are  very  much  more  numerous  than 
those  of  any  other  land,  and  they  give  a  singular  charm 
to  the  scenery  of  the  districts,  in  all  more  than  one-half 
of  the  continent,  in  which  they  occur.  Even  the  deserts 
of  the  Cordilleran  district,  which  extend  from  Central 
Mexico  to  near  the  northern  limit  of  the  United  States, 
possess  many  most  attractive  features.  They  are  diver 
sified  by  mountains,  and  in  their  southern  parts  bear 
here  and  there  a  wonderful  growth  of  the  peculiar 
American  plants  belonging  to  the  group  of  the  cactus. 

If  the  reader  will  but  clear  his  mind  of  the  prejudices 
as  to  what  constitutes  beauty  in  nature  which  have  come 
to  us  from  European  literature  and  the  pictures  of  the 


136  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

scenery  in  that  country,  and  will  seek  a  sympathetic 
understanding  of  the  land  which  is  about  him,  he  will 
not  lack  opportunity  for  securing  that  sense  of  the 
loveliness  of  the  world  which  is  one  of  the  best  gifts 
of  a  true  education. 

WATERFALLS. 

North  America  has  numerous  and  interesting  water 
falls  which  merit  attention  not  only  on  account  of  their 
beauty  and  their  value  in  the  economic  arts  as  sources 
of  power,  but  also  because  they  throw  much  light  upon 
the  geological  history  of  the  country.  Waterfalls  or 
rapids  are  formed  wherever  a  river  in  its  course  encoun 
ters  an  obstruction  which  it  cannot  readily  wear  away 
by  the  cutting  action  of  the  stream.  All  flowing  water 
tends  to  cut  away  the  rocks  over  which  it  passes.  In 
time,  any  river  will  wear  down  all  the  obstructions  of 
its  bed,  so  that  it  will  flow  with  a  gentle,  continuous, 
though  diminishing,  current  from  its  source  to  the  sea. 

When  a  mountain  range  is  formed,  the  streams  im 
mediately  set  to  work  to  bear  it  away,  removing  the 
rocks  bit  by  bit  to  the  sea.  This  work  they  also  do, 
though  more  slowly,  with  the  lower-lying  rocks  of  the 
continental  plains.  Where  the  region  has  recently  been 
elevated  —  recently  in  a  geologic  sense,  though  it  may 
have  been  millions  of  years  —  above  the  sea,  the  streams 
usually  occupy  deep  gorges  and  river-beds,  and  have  a 
rapid  fall.  Gradually  the  main  risers  and  the  tributary 
streams  cut  down  their  beds,  and,  swinging  to  and  fro, 
carry  away  the  highlands  on  either  side :  all  the  while 
the  underground  water  is  dissolving  out  the  substance 
of  the  rocks  which  are  not  touched  by  the  streams  ;  thus 
in  time,  if  the  country  does  not  continue  to  rise,  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  137 

surface  is  brought  down  to  near  the  level  of  the  sea. 
Waterfalls  are  formed  wherever  a  portion  of  the  rock 
over  which  the  stream  flows  is  peculiarly  resisting  to 
this  down-cutting  action.  The  circumstances  which 
may  bring  about  the  formation  of  such  falls  are  numer 
ous  and  interesting.  The  most  common  cause  of  these 
sudden  interruptions  in  the  uniform  flow  of  the  stream 
is  well  represented  in  the  Falls  of  Niagara.  There  the 
great  river  which  drains  the  upper  lakes,  Erie,  Huron, 
Michigan,  and  Superior,  flows  over  bedded  limestones 
and  shales -which  dip  up  the  stream.  The  hard,  com 
pact  layers  of  the  Niagara  limestone  are  but  little  worn 
by  the  clear  water,  which  courses  over  them.  They  give 
way  only  as  the  soft  shales  below  them  are  cut  out  by 
the  whirling  waters  at  the  base  of  the  fall ;  the  lime 
stone  blocks  left  without  support  then  tumble  in  ruins 
into  the  gorge.  In  this  way  the  face  of  the  fall  is  con 
tinually  working  up  stream  at  a  rate  so  rapid  that  it  has 
been  estimated  that  only  about  seven  thousand  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  cataract  was  at  the  mouth  of  the 
gorge  near  Queenstown. 

Although  this  is  the  commonest  type  of  great  falls, 
other  interesting  cataracts  and  rapids  are  formed  in 
other  ways.  Thus  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  the  Ohio  River 
passes  over  a  great  coral  reef  formed  in  the  cor- 
niferous  epoch  of  the  Devonian  age.  This  reef,  some 
miles  in  width,  and  fifty  feet  or  more  in  thickness,  by 
the  entangled  mass  of  coral  branches  and  the  great 
amount  of  lime  which  the  broken-up  corals  and  shells 
have  contributed  to  the  rock,  makes  a  hard  mass  which 
the  water  cannot  cut  away  as  rapidly  as  it  does  the 
softer  materials,  and  so  it  forms  a  series  of  rapids  which 
in  low-water  stages  of  the  stream  are  impassable  for 


138  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

boats.     A  canal  enables  voyagers  to  avoid  the  difficul 
ties  of  the  main  stream. 

Many  waterfalls  are  formed  where  a  stream  passes 
over  dykes  or  veins  which  cause  a  local  hardness  of  the 
rocks ;  but  these  have  generally  the  shape  of  rapids  or 
cataracts,  the  water  falling  from  step  to  step  over  the 
obstruction.  Again,  in  mountainous  countries,  the  tor 
rents  gathered  near  the  summits  of  the  peaks  often 
pass  from  these  high  levels  into  the  valleys  cut  by  the 
rivers  in  a  very  steep  descent.  These  rivers,  because 
their  volume  is  great  and  their  streams  very  permanent 
as  well  as  muddy,  often  excavate  deep  valleys  with  steep 
walls,  while  the  small,  clear  water-rills  of  the  uplands, 
which  are  generally  dry  for  a  part  of  the  year,  cannot 
cut  their  channels  downward  in  such  a  rapid  manner. 
The  sudden  descent  of  rivers  in  rapids  and  steeper 
waterfalls  is  often  of  great  economic  advantage.  At 
such  points  the  water  can  be  led  from  the  top  of  the 
fall  to  water-wheels  at  its  base,  and  be  made  to  give 
power  to  mills.  The  great  number  of  these  falls  in 
North  America  affords  not  the  least  of  its  commercial 
advantages. 

CANONS. 

A  conspicuous  feature  in  the  surface  of  North  Amer 
ica  is  found  in  the  deep  gorges  carved  by  the  rivers  in 
the  rocks  of  certain  parts  of  the  country.  Those  pro 
foundly  excavated  defiles  are  four*!  in  all  the  continents, 
but  they  are  more  abundant  in  North  America  than  in 
any  other.  They  are  particularly  characteristic  of  the 
southern  portion -of  the  Rocky  Mountain  district,  but 
occur  in  nearly  every  part  of  that  vast  elevated  country. 
The  Spanish  applied  to  these  deep  ravines  the  name  of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  139 

canon,  —  a  term  which  has  been  adopted  into  our  own 
language.  In  such  valleys  we  do  not  find  the  surface 
of  the  country  sloping  gently  to  the  river-banks,  as  is  the 
case  in  most  valleys,  but  the  water-way  has  perpendic 
ular  walls. 

The  gorge  of  the  Colorado  is  the  most  wonderful  of 
these  canons,  and  far  exceeds  in  its  proportions  any 
similar  defiles  in  the  world.  It  traverses  the  great 
table-land  of  the  Colorado  plateau,  where  the  rocks, 
though  lifted  to  a  great  height  above  the  sea,  have 
been  but  little  affected  by  mountain-building  disloca 
tions.  The  summit  of  this  elevated  country  lies  at  the 
height  of  from  five  to  seven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea, 
and  has  hardly  any  distinct  slope  towards  the  precipices 
which  border  the  stream.  Through  this  field  of  elevated 
yet  prevailingly  horizontal  rocks  the  river  has  carved  a 
narrow  gorge  having  a  length  of  several  hundred  miles, 
and  at  places  a  depth  of  five  thousand  feet.  So  steep 
are  the  cliffs  which  border  the  river  that  it  is  only  here 
and  there  possible  to  clamber  down  the  escarpment  to 
the  border  of  the  stream.  The  history  of  this  marvel 
lous  gorge  seems  to  be  as  follows :  the  Colorado  River 
is  an  ancient  stream  which  came  into  existence  in  an 
early  age,  and  has  been  since  that  time  continually 
wearing  down  its  bed.  The  river  heads  on  the  lofty 
peaks  of  the  main  ridge  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  above. 
Owing  to  the  height  of  the  country  a  good  deal  of 
moisture  which  passes  from  the  Pacific  Ocean  over  the 
Colorado  plateau  is  thrown  down  as  rain  or  snow,  and 
through  the  channel  of  the  river  passes  away  across 
the  nearly  rainless  region  of  that  table-land.  As  it 
flows  down  its  steep  descent,  this  river  constantly 
carves  away  the  rocks,  cutting  its  channel  nearer  and 


I4O  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

nearer  to  the  sea-level.  If  the  Colorado  plateau  had 
been  a  rainy  country  while  this  carving  went  on,  the 
smaller  tributary  streams  of  the  main  channel  would 
have  worn  down  the  neighboring  district  as  fast  as  the 
bed  of  the  principal  river  was  deepened.  We  thus 
would  have  had  a  broad  valley  of  the  ordinary  form 
occupying  the  place  of  this  table-land  and  gorge.  But 
the  rainfall  of  this  country  has  evidently  been  small  in 
amount  for  many  geological  periods :  there  has  thus 
been  nothing  to  wear  away  the  rocks  in  this  part  of 
the  path  of  the  stream,  except  where  the  river  waters 
from  the  mountain  region  in  the  east  has  assailed  them. 
We  see  by  this  example  that  canons,  in  certain  cases 
at  least,  perhaps  in  all,  are  due  to  the  course  of  a  con 
siderable  river  through  a  region  where  the  underlying 
rocks  have  been  lifted  to  a  considerable  height  above 
the  sea,  and  where  the  local  rainfall  has  long  been  slight 
in  amount. 

There  are,  besides  the  Colorado  Canon,  many  similar 
great  river  gorges  in  the  same  section  of  the  Cor 
dilleras  :  those  of  the  upper  Arkansas,  the  Platte,  and 
the  Yellowstone  deserve  mention.  They  all  present 
like  evidence  going  to  show  that  they  are  due  to  the 
action  of  rivers  which  cut  strongly  on  rocks  which  are 
not  much  worn  by  the  elements  except  where  the  prin 
cipal  stream  assails  them.  Other  canons  occur  in  the 
eastern  parts  of  the  United  States,  but  none  which  ap 
proach  in  magnitude  or  beauty  the  vast  gorges  of  the 
Cordilleras. 

CAVERNS. 

Owing  to  the  existence  of  very  thick  strata  of  pure 
limestone  in  many  parts  of  North  America,  this  conti- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  14! 

nent  abounds  in  extensive  caverns  :  they  are  probably 
more  plentiful  within  its  area  than  in  any  other  part  of 
the  world.  They  most  frequently  occur  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  Ohio  Valley  and  in  the  portion  of  Virginia 
which  lies  between  the  Blue  Ridge  and  the  peaks  of  the 
Alleghany  Mountains ;  but  they  exist  in  many  parts  of 
the  country  where  massive  limestones  occur,  and  where 
the  glacier  of  the  last  ice  period  did  not  cover  the  sur 
face.  Where  this  ice  existed,  it  generally  wore  away 
the  strata  in  which  the  caverns  existed,  and  there  has 
not  been  since  then  time  enough  for  them  to  be  remade. 
The  greatest  number  of  these  caves  are  found  in  the 
central  portion  of  Kentucky,  where  the  beds  of  the 
limestones  belonging  to  the  sub-carboniferous  period 
underlie  a  district  several  thousand  square  miles  in  area. 
The  layers  of  this  limestone  are  very  thick  single  strata, 
often  being  twenty  feet  or  more  in  depth  without  a  par 
tition,  and  the  succession  of  these  beds  forms  a  deposit 
several  hundred  feet  in  thickness  :  they  all  lie  horizon 
tally  as  they  were  laid  down  on  the  old  sea-floors  when 
they  were  formed. 

These  cavern  limestones  owe  their  formation  in  a  cer 
tain  way  to  the  growth  on  the  ocean-bottom,  at  a  great 
distance  from  the  land,  of  very  numerous  animals  which 
formed  their  skeletons  or  solid  supports  of  lime  which 
they  gathered  from  the  marine  plants  on  which  they 
fed.  In  large  part  these  creatures  were  crinoids  or 
"  stone  lilies,"  which  are  like  star-fishes  supported  on 
tall  stems  of  limestone.  These  stems  were  often  two 
or  three  feet  in  height,  and  as  the  branched  arms  were 
also  of  lime,  each  of  these  animals  in  dying  contributed 
a  good  handful  of  stony  matter  to  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  Growing  in  this  way  age  after  age,  the  beds,  com- 


142  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

posed  almost  altogether  of  the  hard  parts  of  crinoids, 
corals,  mollusks,  etc.,  became  in  time  very  thick  and 
massive.  They  contain  hardly  any  sand  or  clay  ;  often 
no  more  than  two  or  three  per  cent  of  the  mass  is  of 
other  materials  than  decayed  animal  frames.  In  time 
these  limestone  beds  were  lifted  above  the  sea ;  there 
the  land-water,  which  lends  itself  to  the  destruction  of 
rocks  as  effectively  as  the  conditions  of  the  sea-water 
aid  their  formation,  began  to  attack  these  deposits  and 
dissolve  them  away,  returning  the  lime  in  the  state  of 
solution  to  the  sea,  to  nourish  living  things  again. 

The  rain-water  excavates  the  caverns  in  the  following 
manner  :  As  the  rocks  are  formed,  they  become  jointed 
or  divided  into  rude  blocks  by  slight  fissures  extending 
in  various  directions  through  the  beds.  The  most  of 
these  cracks  run  vertically  through  the  strata ;  some  of 
them  are  open  enough  to  give  passages  through  which 
the  water  may  trickle  from  the  surface  to  the  depths  of 
the  rocks.  The  pure  water  as  it  falls  from  the  clouds 
has  only  a  slight  power  of  dissolving  limestone  ;  but  in 
passing  through  the  soil  it  becomes  charged  with  car 
bonic  acid  gas,  —  a  chemical  compound  of  one  atom 
of  carbon  and  two  of  oxygen  (CO2),  which  arises  from 
the  decay  of  vegetable  and  animal  bodies  in  the  earth. 
The  water  thereby  becomes  able  to  take  a  great  deal 
of  lime  into  solution,  as  sugar  is  dissolved  in  water. 
Passing  through  the  rents  of  the  strata,  the  rain-water 
dissolves  the  limestone,  and  thus -enlarges  the  passage, 
until  it  no  longer  creeps  along  as  it  does  at  first,  but 
finds  room  to  move  swiftly.  It  then  cuts  the  rock  by 
rubbing  the  fragments  of  hard  stone  against  it,  as  well 
as  by  breaking  it  away.  Where  the  water  falls  vertically 
down  through  the  rifts,  it  makes  tall,  perpendicular 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  143 

parts  of  the  cavern  which  are  called  "domes";  where 
it  creeps  along  through  the  strata  to  the  open  rivers,  it 
forms  tortuous  horizontal  galleries. 

On  the  surface  of  the  earth  of  this  and  other  simi 
lar  cavernous  districts  the  traveller  notices  the  absence 
of  the  ordinary  small  valleys  and  their  accompanying 
streams.  In  place  of  this  familiar  outline,  the  surface 
of  the  earth  is  covered  by  a  multitude  of  shallow  pits, 
from  ten  to  twenty  feet  deep,  and  from  a  hundred  feet 
to  half  a  mile  in  width.  At  the  bottom  of  each  of  these 
there  is  a  hole  which  leads  through  a  hard  layer  to  one 
of  the  vertical  shafts  or  domes  of  the  caverns.  These 
sink-holes  gather  all  the  rain-water  and  send  it  down 
into  the  chambers  of  the  caves  ;  in  passing  through 
these  underground  passages  it  enlarges  their  spaces, 
and  finally  escapes  to  the  rivers  and  thence  to  the  sea, 
bearing  with  it  the  limestone  which  it  has  dissolved  from 
the  rocks  with  which  it  comes  in  contact.  As  the  sur 
face  of  the  country  wears  down,  as  it  does  at  the  rate  of 
a  few  inches  in  each  thousand  years,  the  upper  arches 
of  the  caves  are  constantly  broken  through.  They  fall 
in  here  and  there,  disclosing  in  places  the  underground 
cavern-making  streams.  Where  a  great  length  of  the 
cavern  arch  is  left,  it  is  commonly  called  a  natural  tun 
nel  ;  in  Southwestern  Virginia  such  a  tunnel  is  used  for 
the  passage  of  a  railway.  Where  there  is  only  a  small 
part  of  the  arch  left,  it  is  termed  a  natural  bridge.  That 
of  Rockbridge  County,  Va.,  is  a  good  example  of  the 
remnant  of  a  cavern  roof,  the  greater  part  of  which  has 
fallen  in. 

Although  the  swift-running  streams  of  the  under-earth 
carve  out  large  chambers,  converting  the  once  solid 
limestone  into  a  mass  resembling  worm-eaten  wood,  the 


144  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

waters  which  trickle  slowly  through  the  narrow  crevices 
of  the  rock  and  drop  by  drop  find  their  way  through  the 
sides  and  roofs  of  the  caverns  deposit  limestone  in  the 
spaces  of  the  caverns.  This  is  done  in  the  following 
manner.  Each  drop  of  water  as  it  passes  through  the 
rock  takes  up  all  the  lime  that  it  can  hold.  When  it 
enters  the  open  space  of  the  cave,  the  water  evaporates 
in  the  dry  air,  and  leaves  the  lime  in  an  icicle-shaped 
pendant  called  a  stalactite.  If  there  is  more  water  than 
can  evaporate  on  the  pendent  stalactite,  a  part  of  it  falls 
to  the  floor  and  deposits  its  lime  on  an  upward-growing 
mass  called  stalagmite.  It  often  happens  that  the 
growth  of  these  masses  of  lime  is  in  time  so  great  that 
the  cavern  becomes  entirely  closed  by  them.  Thus, 
while  swift-running  water  excavates  the  caverns,  that 
which  creeps  in  drop  by  drop  serves  to  refill  their 
spaces. 

These  caverns  are  occupied  by  many  curious  animals, 
which  are  generally  related  to  those  of  the  neighboring 
open  air,  but  differ  from  them  in  certain  interesting 
ways.  They  usually  are  without  sight  ;  sometimes  their 
eyes  seem  still  perfect,  but  have  lost  the  power  of  see 
ing  ;  again,  as  in  the  case  of  the  blind  fishes,  the  organ 
of  vision  has  entirely  disappeared,  so  that  we  cannot 
readily  discover  the  place  where  the  parts  originally 
were.  Other  forms,  like  the  cave  crickets,  have  very 
long  feelers,  which  aid  them  in  guiding  their  way  in  the 
darkness.  Near  the  mouths  of  the  caves  the  bats  find 
their  winter  quarters.  When  the  frosty  nights  of  the 
autumn  begin,  they  fly  into  the  caves,  penetrating,  it 
may  be,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  mouth,  and  in  the 
darkness  hang  themselves  by  their  feet  to  the  stalactites 
on  the  ceiling  of  the  chambers  ;  their  bodies  then  be- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  145 

come  cool  and  lose  all  sensibility  :  they  hang  there  as  if 
dead  until  the  warm  days  of  spring  come  :  then,  though 
the  atmosphere  of  the  caves  has  not  changed  in  tem 
perature, —  for  it  remains  the  same  all  the  year,  —  the 
life  suddenly  comes  back  to  their  bodies,  they  shake 
themselves  free,  and  fly  forth  again  to  the  open  air. 
Many  of  these  bats  die  during  their  winter  sleep,  and 
their  bodies  falling  to  the  floor  afford  food  to  the  cavern 
rats,  and  to  many  insects  :  where  they  fall  and  are 
eaten,  the  clay  covering  of  the  cavern  floor  becomes 
very  rich  in  nitrate  of  potash  or  saltpetre.  During  the 
war  of  1812  several  great  caverns,  particularly  the  Mam 
moth  Cave,  afforded  large  quantities  of  this  material  for 
the  manufacture  of  gunpowder. 

Where  the  conditions  are  most  favorable  for  the 
.formation  of  caverns,  the  whole  under-earth  becomes 
riddled  by  them.  Thus  within  the  limits  of  the  cavern 
cfistrict  of  Kentucky  the  length  of  the  galleries  in  the 
caves  which  could  be  traversed  by  man,  if  there  were 
any  way  of  getting  to  their  chambers,  is  doubtless  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  roads  upon  the  surface  of  the 
country.  It  often  happens  that  in  excavating  a  cellar 
or  sinking  a  well  the  people  find  their  way  into  a  vast 
set  of  underground  chambers.  Owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  sink-hole  openings  are  generally  very  small,  and 
that  the  underground  streams  discharge  through  small 
openings  on  the  banks  of  the  rivers,  it  is  always  difficult 
to  enter  these  caves.  The  greater  part  of  those  which 
have  been  discovered  have  entrances  made  by  the  fall 
ing  in  of  the  roof  of  some  gallery  which  has  not  become 
filled  with  stalactitic  material.  Thus  this  vast  subter 
ranean  world  is  curiously  hidden  from  the  inquiring 
eye. 


146  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

DEAD    SEAS. 

Among  the  inland  waters  of  North  America  must  be 
reckoned  the  singular  basins  where  the  rivers  are  poured 
into  a  depression  which  they  never  fill,  the  water  going 
away,  not  as  is  usual  with  lakes  through  a  river  to  the 
sea,  but  through  evaporation  into  the  air.  Such  lakes 
only  occur  where  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  rainfall  in 
certain  times  of  the  year,  followed  by  other  seasons  of 
excessive  drought,  when  the  air  is  greedy  of  moisture. 
Lakes  of  this  nature  are  saline,  and  generally  so  exces 
sively  salt  that  because  of  it  no  living  things  can  dwell 
in  their  waters.  They  occur  only  in  the  most  arid  parts 
of  the  world,  in  regions  where  no  crops  can  be  cultivated 
except  by  means  of  irrigation.  They  are  common  in 
Central  and  Western  Asia,  where,  indeed,  they  are  larger 
and  more  numerous  than  in  any  other  country.  They 
also  are  found  in  Southern  Africa,  in  Australia,  and  parts 
of  Northern  Africa ;  indeed,  they  exist  in  all  the  conti 
nents  except  Europe.  They  indicate  dry  but  not  the 
dryest  climates ;  where  the  rainfall  is  very  small,  no 
lakes  whatever  will  be  formed. 

In  North  America  these  salt  lakes  or  dead  seas  are 
limited  to  the  central  portion  of  the  Cordilleran  system, 
from  the  northern  part  of  Mexico  to  the  line  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada.  Of  these,  the  most  im 
portant  are  the  Lago  di  Cayman  in  Mexico  and  Utah 
Lake  —  the  latter  being  the  northernmost  of  these  dead 
seas.  Between  these  two  great  basins  there  are  hun 
dreds  of  smaller  salt-water  lakelets  and  pools,  some  of  con 
siderable  size,  but  mostly  pools  having  only  a  few  square 
miles  of  area.  Altogether  they  do  not  include  anything 
like  the  area  of  the  Caspian  Sea  or  the  Sea  of  Aral. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  147 

The  saltness  of  these  lakes  without  outlets  is  easily 
accounted  for.  The  rivers  which  flow  into  them  carry 
in  their  waters  certain  small  amounts  of  various  sub 
stances  which  serve  to  give  the  salt  taste  to  the  ocean 
waters.  As  the  water  dries  away  into  the  air,  it  leaves 
these  saline  matters  in  the  basin.  In  course  of  time 
the  quantity  of  these  materials  becomes  greater  than  the 
water  of  the  lake  can  contain,  and  they  begin  to  fall 
upon  the  bottom  of  the  basin.  If  this  process  is  long 
continued,  the  bed  of  the  dead  sea  becomes  deeply  cov 
ered  with  the  salts.  The  accumulations  may  indeed 
attain  a  depth  of  many  hundred  feet.  The  artificial 
process  by  which  this  salt  is  made  closely  follows  the 
natural  method  which  we  find  in  these  lakes  formed  in 
arid  countries.  The  sea-water,  which  owes  its  saline 
character  to  the  salts  which  the  rivers  bring  to  it,  is 
evaporated  by  the  salt-makers  in  pools  shut  off  from  the 
sea,  or  is  boiled  away  in  pans>,  and  so  the  salt  is  caused 
to  fall  upon  the  bottom  as  it  does  upon  the  floor  of  the 
dead  sea. 

We  may  here  note  the  fact  that  all  the  dead  seas  of 
the  Rocky  Mountain  district  which  have  been  carefully 
studied  by  geologists  are  known  to  have  been  once  liv 
ing  lakes  pouring  forth  by  outlets  to  the  sea.  They  all 
show  beaches  at  higher  altitudes  than  their  present 
shores,  and  the  highest  of  these  beaches  is  at  the  level 
where  their  waters  discharged  by  a  river  to  the  sea. 
It  is  thus  plain  that  they  were  recently  fresh-water 
lakes,  which  were  fed  by  a  rainfall  much  greater  than 
now  comes  to  the  country  wherein  they  lie.  During  this 
rainier  time,  which  probably  coincided  with  the  glacial 
period  when  ice-sheets  covered  a  large  part  of  the  conti 
nent,  the  fresh-water  lakes  of  the  Cordilleras  were  of 


148  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

much  greater  area,  perhaps  twenty  times  as  extensive 
as  those  salt-water  basins  now  existing  in  the  country. 
The  dead  seas  are  in  fact  only  the  trifling  remnants  of 
the  ancient  lake  areas  of  this  part  of  the  continent. 

CONTINENTAL    SHELF. 

Around  the  coast-line  of  each  of  the  continents  there 
is  beneath  the  level  of  the  sea  next  the  shore  a  mass  of 
debris,  sand,  clay,  and  pebbles,  worn  from  the  land  by 
the  waves  or  delivered  to  the  ocean  by  the  rivers,  which 
is  called  the  continental  shelf.  The  width  of  this  shelf 
depends  upon  the  amount  of  matter  which  has  been 
rent  from  the  land  and  delivered  to  the  sea  since  the 
land  district  against  which  it  lies  was  lifted  to  its  exist 
ing  level.  If  the  land  has  been  long  in  its  present  posi 
tion,  and  the  waves  and  streams  have  worn  away  much 
of  the  earth  and  rocks  and  laid  the  waste  down  under 
water,  the  shelf  may  extend  a  hundred  miles  or  more 
from  the  shore  ;  if  the  portion  of  the  continent  next  the 
shore  has  recently  been  lifted  from  the  sea,  the  part  of 
the  shelf  which  remains  submerged  may  be  relatively 
small.  It  commonly  happens  that  this  continental  shelf 
in  course  of  ages  is  upraised  above  the  level  of  the 
ocean  waters,  and  forms  dry  land.  Thus  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  United  States,  the  lowland  region  of  West 
ern  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Missis 
sippi,  Louisiana,  and  Texas  is  a  part  of  a  recently  ele 
vated  shelf  of  this  nature.  In  time,  these  regions  of 
plain  become  wrinkled  into  mountains  or  elevated  into 
table-lands  :  the  greater  part  of  the  existing  continents 
have  been  formed  in  this  manner,  first  as  plains  beneath 
the  sea,  and  then  lifted  into  the  air  to  be  folded  into 
ridges  and  to  furnish  waste  to  the  ocean  floor. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  149 

This  continental  shelf  is  best  developed  along  the 
Atlantic  coast  from  Labrador  to  the  southern  part  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  If  the  continent  should  be  raised 
to  the  amount  of  four  hundred  feet,  or  the  sea  be  low 
ered  by  that  measure,  this  shelf  would  appear  as  a  wide 
plain-land  district,  extending  from  the  shore  for  a  great 
distance  towards  the  deep  sea.  At  Newfoundland  it  is 
nearly  three  hundred  miles  wide,  and  is  here  known  as 
"The  Banks."  Along  the  Atlantic  face  of  the  United 
States  it  is  on  the  average  about  one  hundred  miles 
.wide.  It  narrows  near  the  southern  end  of  Florida,  but 
widens  again  along  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
where  it  is  as  marked  as  it  is  along  the  Atlantic  coast. 
At  its  outer  edge  the  bottom  slopes  steeply  to  the 
depths  of  the  sea.  It  is  this  shelf  which  affords  the 
feeding-ground  of  the  schools  of  fishes  which  abound 
on  the  Atlantic  coast.  In  the  future  geological  ages  it 
will  probably  be  elevated  above  the  sea  and  form  a  part 
of  the  continent. 

Although  some  of  the  rocky  matter  which  composes 
this  shelf  has  been  brought  into  the  sea  by  the  action 
of  the  rivers,  the  larger  part  probably  has  come  there 
by  the  work  of  the  waves  and  tides  which  beat  against 
the  shore  and  bear  the  waste  of  the  rocks  out  to  sea. 
During  the  last  glacial  period,  the  ice  moving  slowly 
over  the  land  bore  off  from  it  a  great  mass  of  detritus, 
which  it  deposited  on  the  sea-bottom  near  the  shore  ; 
this  debris  has  been  distributed  by  the  waves  and  marine 
currents,  adding  much  to  the  mass  of  this  shelf,  and 
widening  it  from  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  River  north 
ward.  In  the  region  about  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  wher 
ever  coral  reefs  abound,  they  furnish  a  great  deal  of  limy 
matter,  which,  unless  swept  away  by  strong  currents  to 
the  deep  sea,  is  added  to  the  mass  of  this  shelf. 


I5O  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION 

If  we  examine  the  country  near  the  shore-line  of  the 
eastern  part  of  North  America,  we  find  that  there  are 
at  various  levels,  up  to  some  hundred  feet  above  the 
present  shore,  old  sea-beaches,  each  of  which  marks  the 
presence  of  the  sea  at  a  higher  level  against  the  land 
than  it  now  occupies.  Working  in  former  ages  at  these 
different  heights,  the  sea  has  cut  away  a  great  part  of 
the  margin,  and  has  conveyed  the  material,  so  far  as  it 
was  not  dissolved  in  the  water,  out  upon  the  continental 
shelf.  Wherever  we  find  this  shelf,  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  land  has  been  greatly  worn  away  to  furnish 
materials  for  its  formation. 

CORAL    REEFS. 

Throughout  its  geologic  history  North  America  has 
frequently  been  a  field  where  coral  reefs  have  been  ex 
tensively  developed.  Such  reefs  form  where  a  strong 
current  of  pure  water  from  the  open  seas,  which  has  been 
warmed  under  a  tropical  sun,  is  poured  in  against  the 
land.  In  the  earlier  ages  these  reefs  were  formed  much 
beyond  the  tropics.  In  the  lower  Silurian  they  were 
made  in  the  shallow  water  between  Cincinnati  and  Nash 
ville  ;  in  the  upper  Silurian  in  central  New  York  ;  in 
the  Devonian  about  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  again  in  New 
York.  In  modern  times  they  are  only  occasionally 
found  beyond  the  tropics,  and  nowhere  else  do  they 
attain  such  a  development  in  comparatively  high  lati 
tudes  as  on  or  near  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America. 

All  the  modern  coral  reefs  of  ~North  America  have 
been  formed  under  the  favoring  influence  of  the  Gulf 
Stream.  This  great  tide  of  warm  water  is  heated  in 
the  tropical  districts  between  Africa  and  South  Amer 
ica,  and  flows  from  that  part  of  the  sea  against  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  15! 

eastern  shore  of  the  last-named  continent.  Diverted 
from  its  western  course  by  the  opposing  land,  the  larger 
part  of  this  stream  turns  towards  the  North  Atlantic. 
A  portion  of  it  drifts  into  the  Caribbean  through  the 
spaces  between  the  islands  of  the  Lesser  Antilles ; 
another  part  of  it,  unable  to  find  passage  through  those 
narrow  water-ways,  passes  around  to  the  north  and 
east  of  the  West  Indies.  The  part  of  the  current  which 
enters  the  Caribbean  sweeps  to  the  westward  across 
that  sea,  and  thence  to  the  northward  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  from  which  it  emerges  in  the  mighty  river  of 
the  sea  known  as  the  Gulf  Stream.  The  portion  of  the 
warm  waters  which  flows  to  the  north  of  the  West 
Indies  passes  by  the  Bahamas,  and  finally  mingles  its 
currents  with  those  of  the  Gulf  Stream  in  its  slow- 
moving  mass  of  warm  water  which  flows  toward  the 
polar  region. 

Wherever  these  warm  waters  in  any  considerable 
amount  strike  against  the  shore,  or  upon  shallow  places 
of  the  sea  having  a  depth  of  only  about  a  hundred  feet 
below  the  surface,  they  favor  the  growth  of  those  spe 
cies  of  polyps  which,  from  the  swiftness  of  their  devel 
opment  and  the  form  of  the  colonies  or  communities 
in  which  they  grow,  build  up  great  masses  of  limestone 
termed  coral  reefs.  Where  the  tropical  waters  flow 
against  South  America,  they  make  a  great  series  of 
these  reefs.  Again,  where  they  touch  the  islands  be 
tween  which  they  pass  in  entering  the  Caribbean,  they 
produce  yet  another  series  of  these  structures.  But  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  these  vast  monuments  con 
structed  by  the  frail  polyps  are  those  which  are  found 
in  the  reefs  of  Florida  and  the  Bahamas,  which  lie  on 
the  east  and  west  of  the  channel  through  which  the 


152  THE    PRESENT    GEOGRAPHIC    CONDITION. 

stream  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  pours  into  the  North 
Atlantic.  To  this  stream  we  owe  the  growth  on  the 
southern  margin  of  Florida  of  several  successive  reefs, 
built  one  after  another  from  the  north  southwardly, 
which  have  formed  the  southern  part  of  that  peninsula. 
To  the  Gulf  Stream,  properly  so  called,  and  to  the  cur 
rent  which  flows  north  and  east  of  the  West  Indies, 
may  be  attributed  the  remarkable  growth  of  reefs  which 
constitute  the  Bahamas.  To  the  life-giving  influence  of 
these  two  streams  in  their  farther  northward  course  is 
due  the  growth  of  the  coral  reefs  of  Bermuda,  which 
lies  in  the  open  sea  about  five  hundred  miles  to  the  east 
of  Cape  Hatteras,  being  much  the  farthest  towards  the 
pole  of  any  known  coral  island  formed  during  the  pres 
ent  day. 

These  coral  islands  and  reefs  have  had  an  important 
influence  on  the  geography  of  the  shores,  and  probably 
much  effect  on  the  growth  of  the  lands  and  seas  of 
the  North  Atlantic  region.  They  have  constructed  a 
good  deal  of  the  low-lying  land  about  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico,  and  by  controlling  the  flow  of  water  where  the 
ocean  streams  pass  into  the  North  Atlantic,  they  have 
perhaps  affected  the  temperatures  in  and  about  the 
northern  portion  of  that  sea. 


THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.     153 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Origin  of  American  Indians.  Their  habits.  The  Mound-builders.  Cause 
of  the  failure  of  the  Indians  to  attain  a  civilized  state  due  to  open 
nature  of  the  country.  Capacity  and  character  of  the  Indians.  Effect 
of  these  native  people  on  the  whites. 

IT  is  not  certain  when  or  whence  the  first  human 
beings  came  to  the  continent  of  North  America.  It 
seems  clear,  however,  that  man  did  not  originate  on  this 
continent,  but  came  to  it  from  the  Old  World.  It  is 
much  the  most  likely  that  the  first  settlers  were  from 
Asia,  and  that  they  found  their  way  from  the  region 
north  of  China  along  the  archipelago  of  the  Alaskan 
islands,  and  thence  down  the  western  coast  into  the 
body  of  the  continent.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the 
Esquimaux  tribes  may  have  found  their  way  to  North 
America  across  the  waters  of  the  Northern  Atlantic  ; 
but  as  that  part  of  the  sea  is  wide  and  very  stormy,  and 
as  neither  the  Esquimaux  nor  the  red  Indians  had  boats 
fit  for  long  voyages,  it  is,  on  the  whole,  most  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  they  all  came  by  way  of  the  Aleutian 
Archipelago,  the  islands  of  which  lead  like  stepping 
stones  across  the  sea,  or  else  by  way  of  Behring  Strait, 
which  narrows  until  the  shores  of  Asia  and  America 
are  only  about  fifty  miles  apart. 

The  time  when  the  first  human  beings  came  to  this 
continent  is  also  lost  in  darkness.  Neither  Indians  nor 


154  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

Esquimaux  have  any  traditions  as  to  the  place  of  their 
origin,  and  being  a  people  without  alphabets,  there  is 
no  chance  for  written  history  among  them.  Some  stu 
dents  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  ancestors  of  our  native 
savages  were  on  the  eastern  part  of  the  continent  as  far 
back  as  the  glacial  period.  Although  several  inconclu 
sive  facts  point  to  the  conclusion  that  there  may  have 
been  people  on  this  land  in  that  remote  age,  the  only 
certain  evidences  which  we  find  of  human  occcupation 
are  of  very  much  later  date.  So  far  as  trustworthy 
observations  are  found,  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  pres 
ence  of  human  beings  on  the  eastern  side  of  this  conti 
nent  more  than  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago.  We 
must  esteem  it  probable  that  in  the  time  when  Egypt 
was  occupied  by  peoples  who  had  attained  to  a  very 
considerable  advance  in  civilization  which  enabled  them 
to  build  great  monuments  and  engrave  their  history 
upon  them,  the  greater  part  of  the  American  land  was 
untrodden  by  man. 

On  the  Pacific  coast,  in  the  region  now  occupied  by 
the  state  of  California,  there  is  what  appears  to  be  good 
evidence  showing  the  presence  of  man  in  a  very  much 
earlier  time  than  is  indicated  by  any  satisfactory  evi 
dence  from  the  region  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
In  that  portion  of  the  country,  in  a  time  which  appears 
to  be  at  least  as  ancient  as  the  glacial  period,  there  were 
many  very  great  outbreaks  of  volcanic  nature.  Vast 
streams  of  lava  flowed  down  the  valleys,  filling  the  places 
occupied  by  the  rivers  sometim-es  to  the  very  brim. 
When  these  lavas  had  cooled,  the  rivers  began  to  flow 
again,  but  found  it  easier  to  cut  new  streamlets  on 
either  side  of  the -compact  lava  than  to  remove  the  stone 
from  their  old  pathways.  The  result  is  that  in  many 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  155 

places  the  original  site  of  the  streams  is  left  with  a 
river  on  either  side,  forming  a  "  divide  "  or  watershed 
between  the  two  streams.  Now  it  happens  that  the 
beds  of  these  old  rivers  when  covered  by  the  lava  held, 
as  those  of  the  present  do,  considerable  quantities  of 
gold  in  the  form  of  grains  and  nuggets  which  had  been 
caught  between  the  bowlders  or  other  irregularities  of 
the  bottom. 

When  gold  mining  was  begun  in  California  it  was 
soon  discovered  that  these  old  high-lying  river-beds 
could  profitably  be  worked  for  the  precious  metal  they 
contained.  Galleries  were  run  from  the  hillsides  into 
the  level  of  the  channels,  and  the  gravel  was  carried  out 
and  washed  so  as  to  separate  the  precious  material  from 
the  earthy  matter.  In  doing  this  peculiar  mining  a 
number  of  stones  shaped  to  serve  the  simple  purposes 
of  hatchets  and  hammers,  or  tools  for  pounding  corn, 
have  been  discovered,  and  also  one  well-preserved  spec 
imen  of  a  human  skull.  These  remains  show  clearly 
that  man  has  been  upon  the  Pacific  slope  of  the  conti 
nent  for  a  period  far  outrunning  the  term  of  written 
history,  for  a  time  which  doubtless  extends  much  farther 
back  than  the  remains  so  commonly  found  in  Egypt, 
and  this  for  the  reason  that  it  has  required  probably  not 
less  than  from  twenty  thousand  to  thirty  thousand  years 
for  the  streams  to  cut  down  on  either  side  of  their  old 
bed  to  such  a  depth  below  their  original  position.  The 
fact  that  men  existed  in  so  early  a  day  in  the  region 
about  the  Pacific  coast,  while  we  have  no  good  evidence  of 
their  presence  on  the  eastern  portion  of  North  America 
for  anything  like  as  long  a  time,  makes  it  seem  the  more 
probable  that  the  settlement  of  the  continent  was  from 
Asia,  and  that  long  ages  elapsed  before  the  settlers 


I$  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

passed  through  the  difficult  country  of  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  and  reached  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  portions 
of  the  continent  bordering  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

Except  in  the  case  of  the  Esquimaux,  who  are  evi 
dently  a  peculiar  folk,  the  Indian  natives  of  both 
North  and  South  America  exhibit  a  great  likeness  in 
their  form  and  general  characteristics.  We  find  no 
such  striking  differences  as  occur  among  the  various 
peoples  of  Asia,  in  the  form  and  color  of  their  body ; 
in  a  general  way  in  their  manners  and  customs  they  are 
more  nearly  akin  than  the  diverse  peoples  on  any  of  the 
Old  World  group  of  continents.  They  occupied  the  sur 
face  of  both  continents  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Antarc 
tic  circles  with  a  kindred  life.  No  part  of  this  great 
population  had  ever  attained  to  an  economic  organization 
which  deserves  the  name  of  civilization,  for  none  of  them 
had  invented  a  written  language  or  formed  a  highly 
organized  political  system.  Certain  portions  of  these 
peoples,  however,  those  dwelling  in  the  country  from 
northern  Arizona  southward  along  the  Cordilleras  to  the 
southern  portion  of  Peru,  had  advanced  beyond  the  sav 
agery  of  the  other  tribes.  They  had  almost  entirely 
abandoned  the  occupations  of  the  chase  and  supported 
themselves  by  agriculture.  They  had  learned  to  build 
structures  of  unburnt  brick  and  stone,  and  had  attained 
a  considerable  skill  in  many  other  arts.  They  had,  how 
ever,  never  learned  to  work  iron,  and  probably  did  not 
know  how  to  make  bronze.  Their  weapons  and  tools 
were  of  stone  or  copper,  which  taey  apparently  did  not 
know  how  to  smelt.  Except  among  the  Peruvians  they 
appear  to  have  had  no  beasts  of  burden  except  the  dog, 
and  no  domesticated  animals  which  could  afford  them 
food.  The  Peruvians  alone  had  tamed  the  llama  and 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  157 

alpaca,  which  afforded  food  and  wool,  and  served  as 
beasts  of  burden.  The  people  of  Central  America,  of 
Mexico,  and  of  all  the  northern  parts  of  the  continent 
were  without  any  resources  such  as  domesticated  ani 
mals  other  than  their  dogs  could  afford. 

Deprived  of  the  resources  which  the  men  of  the  Old 
World  obtained  from  their  domesticated  animals,  the 
agriculture  was  of  the  simplest  description,  and  the  food 
of  the  people  of  a  very  unvaried  character.  Ignorant  of 
writing,  no  system  of  laws  and  no  literature  worthy 
of  the  name  could  exist.  All  knowledge  was  a  matter 
of  tradition,  and  in  this  state  of  culture  no  great  intel 
lectual  advance  is  possible.  Thus,  though  through  the 
fabulous  stories  of  the  early  Spaniards,  it  came  to  be 
believed  that  the  Mexican  and  Peruvian  peoples  formed 
great  states,  we  now  know  by  more  accurate  inquiries 
that  they  had  made  but  few  steps  in  the  path  towards 
civilization  beyond  that  attained  by  our  ordinary  red 
Indians. 

Among  the  tribes  outside  of  the  portion  of  the  Cor 
dilleras  above  described  the  native  population  appears 
to  have  everywhere  existed  in  the  condition  of  savagery 
or  the  lowest  state  of  barbarism.  Each  tribe  generally 
consisted  of  a  body  numbering  from  a  few  hundred  to  a 
few  thousand  individuals,  who  held  together  somewhat 
in  the  relation  of  a  great  family.  The  government 
rested  upon  adhesion  to  a  chief.  This  chieftain  was 
commonly  selected  by  the  consent  of  the  women  in  his 
clan.  In  few,  if  any,  tribes  was  the  office  hereditary  ; 
but  it  was  in  most  cases  required  that  the  leader  should 
be  a  man  of  physical  power  and  of  intelligence.  Often 
the  war  chief  was  specially  and  temporarily  chosen  for  a 
particular  campaign.  Commonly  each  of  these  tribes 


158  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

occupied  for  a  greater  or  less  time  a  certain  space  of 
country  ;  but  as  they  were  in  a  state  of  frequent  war 
fare  with  their  neighbors,  as  is  usually  the  case  with 
savages,  they  not  infrequently  drove  out  the  neighbor 
ing  tribes  and  possessed  their  land,  or  were  themselves 
driven  to  other  parts  of  the  country. 

Some  of  these  tribes,  which  by  one  chance  and  another 
had  remained  for  a  considerable  period  in  one  district, 
effected  a  certain  amount  of  union  with  their  neighbors, 
and  gained  strength  thereby.  Thus  the  Iroquois,  or  Five 
Nations,  who  occupied  the  western  part  of  New  York, 
a  position  in  which  they  were  in  a  measure  protected 
from  incursions  of  other  peoples,  formed  what  was  per 
haps  the  strongest  and  most  enlightened  savage  state  in 
this  country  north  of  Mexico,  and  gained  much  strength 
from  their  union.  Yet  other  tribes,  such  as  the  Shawnees, 
were  nomads  driven  about  by  constant  battle.  They 
ranged  from  South  Carolina  to  Pennsylvania,  from  near 
the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi.  In 
general,  we  may  say  that  the  Indians  east  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  were  always  more  settled,  and  were  more  given 
to  agriculture  than  those  to  the  west  of  that  stream. 
They  subsisted,  to  a  certain  measure,  on  the  products  of 
their  fields,  in  which  they  tilled  Indian  corn,  pumpkins, 
and  tobacco.  After  the  first  whites  came  to  this  coun 
try,  many  of  them  acquired  other  domesticated  plants. 

Although  the  Indians  cultivated  the  land  in  a  rude 
way,  they  did  not  plough  the  ground,  but  planted  their 
crops  in  patches  of  soil,  which  they  had  rudely  tilled  with 
stone  implements.  Nor  did  they*€ver  attain  to  the  state 
of  civilization  where  the  land  was  owned  by  individual 
men,  but  it  remained  in  all  cases  the  property  of  the 
tribe.  In  some  -cases,  though  seldom,  they  built  rude, 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  159 

unfloored  houses  of  timber,  which  provided  sufficient 
shelter,  but  they  generally  dwelt  in  log  cabins,  tents,  or 
lodges  made  by  setting  poles  in  the  ground  and  covering 
them  with  mats  and  the  skins  of  animals.  Their  only 
considerable  arts  were  those  of  pottery-making  and  of 
rude  embroidery. 

There  are  many  evidences  going  to  show  that  on  the 
whole  the  Indians  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  rather 
more  domesticated  some  centuries  before  the  whites 
came  to  this  region  than  when  the  country  was  first 
settled  by  Europeans.  Over  a  large  portion  of  that 
great  valley  we  find,  here  and  there,  large  earthen 
mounds,  sometimes  of  gigantic  dimensions,  commonly 
in  the  form  of  conical  heaps,  but  frequently  in  the  shape 
of  serpents,  birds,  and  larger  animals.  These  earth 
works  appear  to  have  been  in  some  way  connected  with 
their  forms  of  worship.  Many  of  the  mounds  were 
probably  designed  to  commemorate  the  place  of  burial 
of  their  distinguished  men.  Besides  these  monumental 
works  there  are  numerous  fortifications  which  often 
inclose  large  areas,  and  are  constructed  with  consider 
able  skill  for  the  purposes  of  defence.  Although  the 
habit  of  building  conical  mounds  in  their  villages  sur 
vived  among  certain  of  the  tribes  after  they  were 
visited  by  the  Europeans,  the  image  mounds  —  those 
delineating  the  forms  of  the  various  animals  —  had 
ceased  to  be  built  before  the  land  was  known  by  the 
people  of  the  Old  World. 

It  appears  likely  that  the  social  condition  of  this  peo 
ple  underwent  a  certain  degradation,  brought  about  by 
the  eastward  extension  of  the  buffalo.  After  these 
savages  had  dwelt  upon  the  land  for  ages,  and  had,  in 
a  measure,  exhausted  the  game  and  been  driven  to  the 


160  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

soil  for  their  support,  the  buffalo  appears  to  have  ex 
tended  its  range  from  the  far  west  towards  the  Missis 
sippi  River.  The  nomadic  savages  of  that  part  of  the 
continent  had  the  habit  of  setting  fire  to  the  prairie 
grass  in  the  dry  season.  The  flames  swept  into  the  east 
ern  forests,  destroying  large  portions  of  their  area,  thus 
bringing  the  open  or  prairie  land  further  to  the  east, 
and  affording  a  better  pasturage  to  the  large  beasts 
which  occupied  it.  As  the  more  eastern  Indians,  who 
had  been  but  a  short  time  accustomed  to  agriculture, 
had  the  chance  once  again  to  obtain  food  in  plenty  by 
hunting,  they  again  became  to  a  considerable  extent  no 
madic,  and  abandoned,  in  a  measure,  the  habit  of  trusting 
to  the  soil,  and  so  lost  a  part  of  the  slight  civilization  to 
which  they  had  attained. 

There  are  many  reasons  for  believing  that  the  Indian 
of  North  America  is  an  abler  man  than  we  should  judge 
from  the  rude  manner  of  his  life.  The  greater  men 
—  such  as  the  chieftain  Brant,  the  Shawnee  Prophet, 
Pontiac,  and  many  other  famous  Indians  —  have  shown 
that  oratorical  ability,  generalship,  and  other  qualities 
which  are  found  only  in  men  of  power,  not  infrequently 
exist  along  with  the  brutal  traits  of  savages.  It  is 
true  that  our  literature  abounds  in  records  of  atrocities 
which  they  committed  during  their  wars.  We  should 
bear  in  mind,  however,  that  such  cruelty  was  common 
among  our  own  ancestors  a  few  thousand  years  ago  ;  and 
against  these  evil  deeds  we  must  set  the  many  well- 
attested  cases  of  kind  treatment  on  the  part  of  the 
Indians  towards  strangers  in  distress ;  and  also  the 
fact,  that  while  they  occasionally  tortured  their  prisoners, 
they  yet  more  commonly  adopted  them  into  their  fami 
lies,  and  gave  them  the  privileges  of  the  tribe";  and 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  l6l 

these  people  thus  adopted  into  the  tribe  often  became,  in 
the  course  of  a  short  time,  so  attached  to  their  savage 
comrades  that  they  could  not  be  induced  to  leave  them. 

It  is  also  clear  that  the  Indian  was  not  deficient  in 
inventive  power.  The  implements  of  war  and  peace 
compared  favorably  with  those  used  by  the  early  peo 
ples  of  the  Old  World  whence  we  ourselves  have  come. 
In  the  last  century  a  half-breed  Indian  of  the  Cherokee 
race,  Sequoia,  accomplished  the  remarkable  feat  of  in 
venting,  altogether  by  himself,  a  means  of  writing  his 
own  language.  This  art  he  taught  to  the  young  men  of 
his  tribe,  and  so  created  at  once  a  method  of  recording 
thought  such  as  it  required  thousands  of  years  for  the 
peoples  of  the  Old  World  to  attain  to.  If  we  suppose, 
as  the  facts  justify  us  in  doing,  that  the  Indian  was  not 
kept  in  his  low  position  by  lack  of  ability,  how  can  we 
account  for  his  condition,  for  his  failure  to  gain  a  firm 
foothold  on  civilization  in  the  many  centuries  during 
which  he  occupied  this  country  ? 

It  seems  likely  that  the  failure  of  the  Indian  to  attain 
much  advance  in  his  economic  condition  was  due  mainly 
to  the  fact  that  he  dwelt  in  a  very  open  land,  unlike 
the  peoples  of  Asia  and  Europe,  who  were  nurtured  in 
districts  more  or  less  completely  shut  off  from  the  other 
parts  of  the  world  by  decided  barriers.  The  only  exten 
sive  isolated  districts  of  North  America  lie  so  far  to  the 
north  that  -their  lands  are  sterile.  The  mountain  valleys, 
which  are  sufficiently  walled  about  to  make  them  safe 
refuges,  are  usually  in  over-dry  regions,  unfit  for  agri 
culture.  The  islands  of  the  Antilles  are  in  the  tropical 
districts,  where  the  climate  is  unfavorable  for  human 
advance.  The  greater  portion  of  North  America,  about 
all,  indeed,  of  its  fertile  land,  lies  in  one  great  area, 


1 62  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

which  is  easily  moved  over  in  every  direction  by  savage 
peoples.  It  appears  in  the  Old  World  that  all  the  folk 
who  succeeded  in  passing  from  savagery  to  civilization, 
secured  their  advance  by  occupying  some  limited  field 
where,  by  reason  of  mountain  ranges  or  broad  spaces  of 
sea,  they  were  safe  from  the  incursion  of  savage  neigh 
bors,  and  were  thus  able  through  centuries  to  accom 
plish  a  great  deal  of  progress  in  the  development  of  the 
arts,  which  is  impossible  without  the  seclusion  and  safety 
which  comes  from  such  isolation.  If  in  North  America 
any  tribe  advanced  somewhat  in  culture,  and  came  to 
have  a  certain  amount  of  wealth,  they  were  in  imme 
diate  danger  of  being  plundered  by  their  more  warlike 
and  needy  neighbors.  Thus  the  character  of  the  sur 
face  of  North  America  did  not  favor  the  development  of 
civilization. 

A  yet  more  important  influence  is  found  in  the  absence 
in  North  America  of  animals  which  can  be  domesticated 
and  turned  to  human  use.  This  continent  had  no  wild 
cattle  or  horses,  no  tamable  variety  of  sheep,  no  pigs 
or  goats,  no  elephants  or  camels.  The  only  creatures 
capable  of  domestication  were  the  llama  and  alpaca, 
which  were  used  by  the  Peruvians.  These  are  small 
animals  unfit  to  draw  the  plough.  They  afford  only  wool, 
meat,  and  a  little  service  as  pack-animals.  It  is  probable 
that  this  absence  of  domesticable  beasts  was  the  most 
serious  hindrance  to  the  advance  of  our  savages  beyond 
the  condition  to  which  they  had  attained  when  Europeans 
came  to  the  country.  It  is  likely  that  if  Asia  and  Europe 
had  been  without  these  animal?  which  have  served  man 
so  well,  our  own  civilization  would  not  have  gone  very 
much  further  than  that  of  the  savages  whom  our  race 
displaced  on  this  continent.  Something  also  must  be 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  163 

allowed  for  the  fact  that  our  Indians  never  had  the  good 
fortune  to  learn  how  to  extract  metals  from  their  ores. 
No  considerable  advance  in  the  arts  is  possible  without 
this  art.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  our  savages  never 
learned  the  art  of  boat-building.  Their  only  vessels  were 
pirogues  and  bark  canoes ;  the  former  consisted  of  large 
logs  hollowed  out  by  the  use  of  fire,  which  served  to 
burn  the  wood,  and  stone  tools  which  scraped  away  the 
charcoal  after  each  application  of  fire.  Such  vessels  can 
never  have  considerable  size,  or  be  in  any  degree  safe  in 
open  water.  The  bark  canoe,  the  other  form  of  boat,  is 
also  limited  to  the  size  of  a  single  tree,  and  is  scarcely 
more  seaworthy  than  the  pirogue  or  dug-out.  The 
art  of  ship-building  requires  at  least  the  use  of  metal 
axes  and  other  tools.  It  can  indeed  attain  no  con 
siderable  development  until  something  like  the  saw 
enables  the  men  to  shape  timber  to  their  needs.  Thus 
the  American  savages,  through  their  ignorance  of  the 
use  of  metals,  were  debarred  from  an  extended  maritime 
life. 

The  fact  that  the  low  grade  of  our  American  Indians 
was  in  part  due  to  the  open  nature  of  the  country  is 
shown  by  the  condition  of  the  regions  in  which,  as  in 
Peru,  Central  America,  and  Mexico,  these  Indians  had 
gone  further  toward  civilization.  These  are  the  parts 
of  the  continent  where  the  occupants  of  the  ground 
are  tolerably  well  sheltered  from  the  incursion  of  less 
advanced  peoples  about  them.  Even  in  Mexico,  if  we 
may  trust  their  traditions,  the  somewhat  cultivated 
people  of  that  country  were  subject  to  very  destructive 
incursions  from  tribes  of  wandering  savages.  So,  too, 
the  condition  of  the  Peruvians,  by  far  the  most  advanced 
towards  civilization  of  any  of  our  American  Indians 


164  THE    ABORIGINAL    PEOPLES 

at  the  time  when  the  whites  came  to  the  country,  may 
be  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  they  had  in  the  singular 
group  of  domesticated  animals  which  they  acquired 
some  other  resource  than  that  afforded  by  the  labor  of 
their  own  hands.  In  a  word,  it  seems  likely  that  the 
social  condition  of  our  American  Indians  was  to  a  great 
extent  determined  by  the  physical  state  of  the  district 
which  they  occupied.  Our  own  race  came  to  the 
country  so  provided  with  the  arts  of  civilization  that 
the  lack  of  domesticated  animals,  the  absence  of  barriers 
between  one  part  of  the  region  and  the  other,  were 
of  no  very  great  consequence  to  us.  The  only  risk  of 
incursion  was  from  the  savages,  and  they  were,  through 
the  superior  arts  of  war  of  the  Europeans,  easily  over 
come.  For  nearly  two  centuries,  however,  our  own 
folk  felt  something  of  the  effect  arising  from  the 
absence  of  strong  geographic  features  in  the  country 
which  might  afford  them  some  effective  shelter  against 
the  savages.  It  was  easy  for  a  war-party  of  Indians  to 
move  many  hundreds  of  miles  through  the  tolerably 
open  forests  or  the  plain  lands,  which  characterize  so 
much  of  the  continent,  and  to  strike  serious  blows  at 
many  frontier  settlements.  Such  forays  were  rarely 
possible  in  the  conditions  of  the  Old  World,  where  the 
land  was  of  old,  as  at  present,  divided  by  impassable 
forests  and  morasses,  by  mountain  chains  or  arms  of 
the  sea. 

It  was  fortunate  for  the  European  settlers  in  this 
country  that  the  Indians,  though  brave  and  warlike, 
were  subdivided  into  small  tribes  and  so  hostile  one 
to  the  other  that  no  effective  resistance  could  be  made 
by  them  to  the  scanty  bands  of  Europeans  who  first 
came  to  these  shores.  Moreover,  the  arms  used  by  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  165 

savages  were  of  a  rude  and  ineffective  sort.  The  ordi 
nary  short  bow  and  the  rude  stone  hatchet  were  the 
chief  weapons  which  they  possessed.  Although  they 
used  these  valiantly,  the  weapons  were  very  ineffective 
against  firearms,  and  the  armor  in  which  the  European 
soldiery  encased  themselves.  So  it  was  that  the  Span 
ish  conquerors,  though  in  none  of  their  invasions  had 
they  more  than  a  few  hundred  soldiers,  were  enabled  to 
conquer  the  strongest  and  best  organized  portions  of 
our  American  Indians  who  could  bring  many  thousand 
brave  but  ill-armed  men  into  the  field.  In  no  cases 
during  the  wars  between  the  Indians  and  Europeans 
have  the  savages  ever  been  able,  however  numerous, 
to  make  head  against  a  thousand  well-equipped  and  skil 
fully  led  white  soldiers.  In  cases  they  have  managed 
to  defeat  somewhat  larger  bodies  of  white  troops,  but 
all  such  successes  were  due  to  lack  of  skill  in  man 
aging  the  civilized  forces.  If  the  savages  had  attained 
to  a  somewhat  higher  development,  if  they  had  even 
the  skill  in  military  matters  of  the  African  Zulus,  they 
might  have  retained  possession  of  the  continent  for 
centuries  after  its  discovery  by  Columbus, 


l66      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 


CHAPTER   V. 

NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

Natural  conditions  and  resources.  Value  of  climate,  soil,  and  minerals 
to  man:  to  the  savage;  to  civilized  man.  Climate  of  the  several  great 
divisions  of  the  continent.  Share  of  the  land  fitted  for  human  use. 
Soils  of  North  America.  Domesticated  plants  of  the  United  States. 
Wild  and  domesticated  animals.  Mineral  resources,  metals,  fruits,  etc., 
of  the  several  parts  of  the  continent. 

IN  this  chapter  we  shall  consider  the  natural  condi 
tions  and  resources  of  the  continent  which  affect  the 
welfare  of  men.  In  such  an  inquiry  we  find  it  necessary 
to  glance  once  again  at  the  various  physical  features 
which  have  been  set  forth  in  the  previous  chapters.  Of 
these  the  climate  is  the  most  important ;  next,  the  pro 
ductions  of  the  soil  or  those  of  the  deeper-lying  earth 
which  are  afforded  by  mines  and  quarries ;  and  last,  the 
relations  of  the  country  to  other  lands,  which  go  to 
determine  the  ways  of  commerce  with  other  parts  of 
the  world.  The  value  of  these  features  differs  much  at 
different  stages  of  the  development  of  a  people. 

In  the  earliest  stage,  when  the  folk  are  in  the  process 
of  acquiring  their  natural  characteristics,  the  climate, 
soil,  and  relations  which  their  cradle  land  has  to  other 
countries  are  of  the  utmost  importance.  After  a  time, 
when  these  conditions  have  strongly  impressed  them 
selves  on  the  character  of  the  rac£,  they  may  go  forth  to 
other  lands,  where  they  find  very  different  conditions, 
and  for  centuries  retain  the  qualities  which  the  country 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  l6/ 

of  their  infancy  impressed  upon  them.  Thus  the  Aryan 
people,  who  were  raised  from  primitive  savagery  to  a 
state  of  some  civilization  in  the  northern  lands  of  Eu 
rope  or  Asia,  most  probably  in  the  region  about  the  Scan 
dinavian  peninsula,  spread  thence  throughout  Europe, 
Western  and  Southern  Asia,  mingling  with  other  races, 
which  they  in  time  in  good  part  displaced.  This  sepa 
ration  of  the  Aryan  people  was  so  complete  that  the 
different  branches  of  that  race  lost  all  knowledge  of 
their  original  kinship,  which,  indeed,  has  only  been 
discovered  in  very  modern  times  by  a  study  of  their 
languages,  literatures,  and  customs.  Although  some 
of  these  branches  settled  in  the  tropics  and  others 
remained  in  their  northern  home,  some  became  mainly 
seafarers,  and  others  have  dwelt  in  the  central  parts  of 
the  continents  ;  although,  in  a  word,  they  have  gone  to 
all  the  differences  of  condition  which  the  world  affords, 
all  the  branches  of  the  race  have  certain  common  traits. 
They  everywhere  show  a  singular  capacity  for  intellec 
tual  development,  their  religions  are  always  ideal,  their 
literature  of  a  more  finished  order  than  those  of  other 
races ;  from  them  have  come  all  the  high  civilizations 
except  those  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  Arabs,  who  belong 
to  the  Semitic  peoples.  Greece,  Rome,  all  modern 
Europe,  and  the  present  civilizations  of  the  two  Amer 
icas  and  Australia  are  of  Aryan  origin. 

Thus  when  a  people  have  certain  definite  character 
istics  impressed  upon  them  in  the  cradle  land,  the  region 
where  their  infancy  was  spent,  they  are  likely  to  pre 
serve  these  features  long  after  they  have  been  separated 
from  their  birthplace.  Great  as  are  the  influences  of 
these  early  conditions  on  the  character  of  a  people,  they 
are  in  a  measure  affected  by  the  country  in  which  their 


l68      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

lives  are  lived  ;  gradually  the  nature  about  them  deter 
mines  their  habits  into  new  channels,  and  modifies  their 
ways  of  thinking  and  acting.  The  fishermen  of  New 
foundland  or  Iceland,  depending  on  the  sea  for  their 
subsistence,  are  very  different  men  from  the  merchants 
of  New  York  or  New  Orleans,  or  the  prosperous  farmers 
of  the  Northwestern  states ;  for  the  good  reason  that  a 
man's  work  shapes  his  qualities,  the  nature  of  the  earth 
about  him,  which  determines  his  work,  gives  character 
to  his  thought,  and  is  in  turn  reflected  in  all  his  ways  of 
living.  The  effect  may  not  at  first  be  plain,  for  the 
habits  of  our  forefathers  dwell  long  with  us,  but  in  the 
course  of  a  few  generations  men  become  greatly  influ 
enced  by  the  world  immediately  about  them.  There 
fore,  if  we  would  have  a  good  idea  of  the  effect  of  living 
in  the  various  parts  of  this  continent  on  the  men  who 
are  to  inhabit  it  in  the  time  to  come,  we  must  consider 
the  relations  of  the  climate,  soil,  mineral  resources,  and 
general  geography  of  these  districts. 

The  climate  of  North  America  varies  more  widely 
than  that  of  any  other  continent  except  Asia,  and  is  not 
exceeded  in  range  by  that  great  continent.  In  respect 
to  the  climatal  conditions,  North  America  may  be  conven 
iently  divided  into  four  districts,  each  of  which  has  cer 
tain  portions  of  great  importance  to  the  welfare  of  men. 
These  are  the  frozen  north,  the  exceedingly  arid  region 
of  the  Cordilleras,  the  district  of  middle  temperatures 
and  rainfall,  and  the  tropical  country  of  the  extreme 
south.  All  these  districts  differ  from  the  countries  of 
Europe  and  those  of  the  greater  part  of  the  other  con 
tinents  in  the  fact  that  in  North  America  the  difference 
between  winter  and  summer  is  greater  than  in  those 
other  lands.  This  is  due  to  the  large  amount  of  land 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  169 

in  the  region  near  the  north  pole,  which  becomes  cov 
ered  with  snow  in  winter  and  makes  the  winds  from 
that  direction  excessively  cold.  A  glance  at  the  map 
shows  how  different  are  these  conditions  from  those  of 
all  the  other  great  continents  except  Asia.  Taking  the 
above-named  districts  in  the  order  in  which  they  are 
named  we  will  proceed  to  consider  in  succession  the 
character  of  their  climates. 

The  frozen  north  includes  all  the  district  within  and 
north  of  the  Laurentian  Mountains  ;  viz.  Labrador,  the 
lands  near  Hudson's  Bay,  and  the  little  known  country  to 
the  northward  of  these  districts.  In  general  the  region 
on  the  north  polar  side  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  St. 
Lawrence,  except  the  narrow  strip  of  country  overspread 
by  the  Canadian  people,  is  desolated  by  cold.  In  the 
central  part  of  the  continent,  including  the  valley  of  the 
Red  River  of  the  North  and  the  Saskatchewan,  and 
probably  a  small  part  of  the  country  yet  further  to  the 
north,  the  climate  is  so  far  bettered  by  the  influence  of 
the  air  blowing  from  the  warm  waters  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean  that  the  summers  are  long,  moist,  and  hot  enough 
to  permit  the  tillage  of  the  soil,  and  the  production  of 
certain  kinds  of  grain  and  vegetables  ;  always,  however, 
with  the  risk  that  peculiar  seasons  may  cause  a  failure 
of  crops.  On  the  west,  in  the  highlands  of  the  Cordil 
leras,  north  of  the  boundary  of  the  United  States,  the 
elevation  of  the  surface  causes  the  cold  to  be  greater, 
and  so  the  fertile  middle  region  of  the  British  Dominion 
is  walled  in  both  on  the  east  and  west  by  countries  ster 
ilized  by  cold. 

The  frozen  region  of  the  continent  includes  about  one- 
fourth  of  its  surface,  which  is  now  and  must  ever  be 
unfit  for  the  more  important  uses  of  man ;  at  least 


I/O      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

until  some  great  change  in  the  climatal  conditions  of 
the  region  is  brought  about.  Within  this  great  realm 
of  cold  the  short,  hot  summer,  with  its  long  days  and 
prevailing  westerly  winds,  brings  a  brief  period  in  which 
plants  of  varied  kinds  grow  with  great  luxuriousness. 
For  two  or  three  months  the  vegetation  flourishes  al 
most  as  well  as  it  does  in  tropical  lands ;  but  this  respite 
from  the  cold  is  brief  and  precarious  :  north  winds  may 
at  any  time  bring  frosts,  and  at  best  the  summer  is  not 
long  enough  for  the  development  of  the  grains,  fruits, 
and  roots  on  which  man  and  his  domesticated  animals 
depend  for  food.  Throughout  a  large  part  of  this  region 
the  earth  at  a  depth  of  a  few  feet  below  the  surface 
remains  locked  in  frost  throughout  the  year.  The  sum 
mer  warmth  melts  the  water  in  only  the  upper  part  of 
the  soil,  the  rest  remains  frozen. 

The  greater  part  of  this  extensive  north  land  is  cov 
ered  by  scanty  forests  and  wide  fields  of  upland  swamps. 
The  woods  are  so  low  and  the  trees  have  such  small 
and  short  trunks  that  they  are  worthless  for  timber. 
The  only  resources  of  value  to  men  are  to  be  found  in 
the  mineral  stores  of  the  rocks  and  the  fishes  of  the 
lakes  and  neighboring  seas.  What  is  known  of  the 
geology  does  not  give  much  promise  that  this  land  has 
sufficient  mineral  wealth  to  tempt  miners  to  brave  its 
inhospitable  climate.  Coal,  which  might  help  to  make 
the  land  inhabitable,  is  probably  of  rare  occurrence  ;  iron 
and  the  precious  metals  are  probably  found  in  many 
places,  but  not  well  situated  for  working.  It  is  thought 
that  petroleum  may  be  obtained  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mackenzie  River,  but  until  the  vas4^ supplies  in  the  rocks 
of  more  southern  countries  are  exhausted  it  will  have  no 
value  for  exportation. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  I/I 

The  fisheries  of  the  seas  which  border  the  northeast 
ern  part  of  the  continent  are  valuable,  but  they  are  now 
resorted  to  by  sailors  from  the  central  parts  of  the  coun 
try,  who  return  home  with  their  harvest  and  only  make 
at  most  temporary  settlements  on  the  shore.  It  thus 
seems  certain  that  this  part  of  North  America  has  little 
promise  as  a  dwelling-place  for  our  race.  It  will  proba 
bly  remain  for  hundreds  of  years  a  vast  desert,  a  wider 
and  more  useless  realm  for  civilized  man  than  any  other 
part  of  the  earth.  Even  the  Desert  of  Sahara  has  its 
oases ;  the  very  cold  country  of  Siberia  can  in  parts 
have  crops  of  grain,  and  has  much  mineral  wealth ;  and 
the  central  part  of  Australia,  though  now  a  desert,  lacks 
only  water  to  make  it  fertile ;  and  this  may  be  in  part 
at  least  won  to  man's  use  by  artificial  means,  by  storing 
that  which  can  be  obtained  in  time  of  rain  to  be  used 
in  the  season  of  drought  :  but  this  region  desolated  by 
cold  is  not  to  be  bettered  by  human  skill.  The  only 
use  which  it  can  have  will  be  for  a  great  natural  park 
whereto,  when  the  more  southern  parts  of  the  continent 
are  crowded  with  a  dense  population,  the  people  may 
resort  for  the  recreation  which  the  wilderness  affords. 
For  this  use  it  is  admirably  suited,  its  summer  climate 
is  stimulating  and  delightful,  its  scenery  charming  ;  even 
in  winter  the  face  of  nature  has  a  splendor  from  its 
unbroken  snowfields  and  the  surprising  beauty  of  the 
recurring  periods  of  the  Aurora  Borealis,  which  wrap 
the  skies  in  a  dress  of  fire. 

Besides  the  desert  of  the  high  north,  there  is  another 
portion  of  the  continent  which  is  in  a  certain  way  unfit 
for  the  best  uses  of  man.  This  is  the  dry  land  of  the 
Cordillera  district.  From  southern  Mexico  to  the  north 
ern  part  of  the  United  States,  and  from  the  one  hun- 


1/2       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

dredth  meridian  west  to  central  California  and  Oregon, 
the  land  is  so  high  and  so  separated  from  the  sea-winds 
that  the  rainfall  is  very  scanty,  not  averaging  more  than 
about  a  foot  in  the  year,  and  coming  to  the  earth  mostly 
in  the  winter  season,  when  it  cannot  serve  the  need  of 
plants.  This  region,  made  sterile  by  drought,  merges 
on  the  north  into  the  frozen  part  of  the  continent,  so 
that  in  a  portion  of  the  area  the  dryness  combines  with 
a  low  temperature  to  make  the  land  a  desert. 

The  arid  desert  district  covers  about  one-fifth  of  the 
continent.  In  this  region  crops  may  in  wet  summers 
be  with  profit  tilled  on  much  of  the  surface,  but  the 
rainfall  is  so  limited  that  agriculture  is  uncertain  ex 
cept  where  the  scanty  streams  are  led  upon  the  ground 
in  ditches,  or  where  the  water  is  stored  in  reservoirs  for 
use  in  the  summer  season.  Although,  as  in  other  coun 
tries  of  high  mountains,  a  great  part  of  this  district  is 
too  rocky  for  tillage,  the  larger  part  of  its  surface  has 
a  deep  soil  which  in  the  main  was  formed  in  times  when 
the  rainfall  was  more  abundant  than  at  present.  As 
little  grows  upon  this  earth,  it  contains  a  great  deal  of 
nutriment  for  plants,  and  is,  when  well  watered,  exceed 
ingly  fertile.  It  is  reckoned  by  Major  Powell,  director 
of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  that  by  storing 
the  water  from  the  winter  rains  in  the  valleys  above  the 
head-waters  of  the  rivers,  it  will  be  possible  to  irrigate 
about  50,000  square  miles  of  this  desert  land,  a  field 
considerably  greater  than  the  state  of  Illinois.  On 
account  of  the  natural  fertility  of  the  soil,  it  seems 
likely  that  from  this  barren  district  engineers  may  win 
to  the  uses  of  man  fields  having  the  food-giving  value  of 
all  the  land  within  the  valley  of- the  Ohio  River.  It 
is  not  unlikely  that  within  a  century  these  artificially 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  1/3 

watered  districts  of  the  great  desert  region  of  North 
America  may  support  a  population  of  twenty  or  thirty 
millions. 

Although  the  climate  of  this  arid  district  is  very  dry, 
it  is  very  wholesome  for  man  and  his  domesticated 
animals.  The  clear  sunlight  and  upland  air  secure  it 
against'  many  diseases  which  overrun  the  lower-lying 
countries.  It  will  probably  develop  a  race  of  hardy 
mountain  people,  as  Switzerland  has  done  in  the  country 
of  the  Alps.  The  dry  region  of  the  Cordilleras  can  only 
give  a  small  part  of  its  surface  to  tillage,  and  this  at 
much  cost  in  labor.  The  crops,  except  at  certain  points, 
are  too  far  from  the  sea-shore  to  enter  into  commerce. 
They  will  only  serve  for  the  use  of  the  people  who  dwell 
on  the  ground.  Scanty  as  are  the  agricultural  resources 
of  this  great  district,  beneath  the  soil  there  is  a  great 
variety  of  wealth-giving  minerals ;  no  other  equal  por 
tion  of  the  earth's  surface  has  ever  yielded  so  large 
and  so  varied  a  contribution  of  mineral  products.  The 
precious  metals,  gold,  silver,  and  platinum,  are  exten 
sively  mined ;  the  base  metals,  even  more  precious  to 
the  arts,  iron,  copper,  and  zinc,  and  many  other  im 
portant  substances,  abound  in  many  parts  of  the  field ; 
the  heat-giving  materials,  coal,  natural  gas,  and  pe 
troleum,  exist  in  considerable  quantities ;  and  many 
earthly  substances,  such  as  natural  or  earth  wax,  soda, 
salt,  etc.,  are  more  plentiful  than  in  any  other  con 
siderable  part  of  the  world.  It  seems  certain  that  the 
mountainous  portion  of  the  great  arid  land  of  North 
America  will  in  the  next  century  be  the  greatest  field 
of  the  world  for  mining  industries.  The  fact  that  by 
irrigation  the  soil  can  be  made  to  supply  the  people 
engaged  in  seeking  this  underground  wealth,  secures  a 


1/4       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

great  future  to  its  population,  for  they  will  thus  obtain 
cheap  and  varied  food. 

Although,  as  we  have  just  seen,  nearly  one-half  of 
North  America  is  not  well  conditioned  for  man's  use, 
it  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  continent  is  as  a 
whole  a  less  favorable  place  for  human  development 
than  the  other  great  lands  of  the  earth.  The  fact  is 
that,  excepting  Europe,  the  continent  is  really  better 
fitted  to  serve  the  needs  of  man  than  any  other  of  the 
continental  masses.  Europe,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it 
has  not  the  true  continental  form,  but  is  a  mere  group 
of  peninsulas  and  islands  attached  to  the  western  coast 
of  Asia,  is  exempt  from  exceeding  cold  or  drought,  — 
the  two  desert-making  elements  of  climate.  As  a 
whole  the  Asiatic  land  mass  is,  in  proportion  to  the 
area,  even  less  fitted  for  the  uses  of  civilized  man 
than  North  America ;  for  the  northern  part  of  the  con 
tinent  is  subject  to  the  same  polar  conditions  which 
sterilize  high  latitudes  of  North  America  and  the  whole 
of  the  central  parts  of  the  continent  are  subject  to  con 
tinued  drought. 

Africa  is  so  placed  as  to  escape  the  effects  of  cold,  but 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  northern  part  of  that  continent 
is  made  desert  by  drought.  In  Australia  at  least  three- 
fourths  of  the  land  so  far  lacks  rain  in  the  growing  sea 
son  that  it  is  untillable.  South  America  has  its  southern 
portion  in  Patagonia  so  near  to  the  south  pole  that  it  is 
by  the  cold  rendered  unfit  for  man's  uses,  and  in  the 
western  portion,  where  the  Cordilleras  of  South  America 
rise  to  great  altitudes,  a  combination  of  cold  and  drought 
desolates  a  considerable  part  of  the  area.  The  valleys 
of  the  great  rivers  of  the  Orinoco,  Amazon,  La  Plata, 
contain  exceedingly  fertile  land,  but  the  greater  portion 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  1/5 

of  this  region  is  within  the  realms  of  tropical  heat  and 
affords  conditions  of  cliniate  which  have  never  been 
found  favorable  for  the  life  of  our  race  or  for  that  of 
any  other  people  capable  of  making  a  high  civilization. 
When  we  carefully  look  over  the  lands  of  the  earth,  we 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  not  more  than  one-half  of 
that  surface  is  really  fit  for  the  uses  of  the  Aryan  race ; 
the  remainder  must  remain  unoccupied  by  man,  or  at 
most  peopled  by  savage  or  barbarian  tribes.  Thus 
though  North  America  has  a  great  part  of  its  surface 
in  the  condition  of  what  we  must  call  deserts,  it  is  not 
in  this  regard  in  worse  condition  than  the  other  conti 
nents. 

North  America  has  for  our  own  people  the  great  ad 
vantage  that  its  well-watered  lands  are  almost  altogether 
within  the  region  of  the  middle  temperatures,  —  those 
states  of  heat  and  cold  which  permit  the  vigorous 
development  of  the  peoples  who  came  from  northern 
Europe.  Except  a  small  area  extending  from  the  Rio 
Grande  and  the  Colorado  south  to  the  isthmus  and  a 
small  portion  of  Southern  Florida,  no  part  of  the  con 
tinent  is  subjected  to  the  evils  of  a  tropical  climate; 
even  the  portions  of  Southern  Mexico  and  Central 
America  which  lie  within  the  region  of  the  true  tropics 
have  a  large  part  of  the  surface  so  elevated  above  the 
sea  that  the  climate  is  more  tolerable  to  our  race  than 
is  generally  the  case  with  lands  near  the  equator.  Not 
more  than  about  one-twentieth  of  the  mainland  of  the 
continent  is  so  far  affected  by  the  equatorial  heat  as  to 
be  decidedly  unsuited  for  the  uses  of  our  race.  If  we 
include  the  West  Indian  islands  in  the  lands  of  North 
America,  the  proportion  of  tropical  realm  would  be  some 
what  extended ;  but  a  large  part  of  these  islands,  like 


176      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

the  tropical  portions  of  the  mainland,  are  elevated  to 
such  heights  above  the  sea  that  they  afford  tolerable 
climates  for  men  of  our  race. 

From  the  Laurentian  Mountains  southward  to  the 
Gulf  and  westward  to  the  one  hundredth  meridian  we 
have  a  great  field  of  land,  of  remarkably  good,  fertile 
quality,  which  possesses  a  climate  which  two  centuries 
of  experience  has  shown  to  be  singularly  well  fitted  for 
the  home  of  people  who  are  the  descendants  of  Northern 
Europeans.  West  of  the  Cordilleras,  along  the  Pacific 
coast  from  the  northern  line  of  Mexico  to  the  southern 
portion  of  Alaska,  is  another  section  of  continent,  rela 
tively  small  in  area,  amounting  to  not  more  than  one- 
twentieth  of  the  eastern  fertile  section,  which  also  is 
admirably  suited  to  the  needs  of  our  people.  These  two 
districts  together  contain  about  two-fifths  of  the  con 
tinental  area.  In  the  Cordilleran  district  from  Southern 
Mexico  to  the  southern  part  of  British  Columbia  we 
have,  as  before  remarked,  numerous  areas  of  land  capa 
ble,  with  engineering  skill,  of  serving  the  needs  of  man. 
This  region  of  detached  fertile  grounds  will  probably 
have  a  great  value  in  the  centuries  to  come ;  but  it  is 
not  by  nature  alone  suited  to  the  uses  of  man,  for  it 
demands  engineering  skill  to  fit  it  for  such  purposes. 

The  eastern  fertile  section  of  North  America,  that 
extending  between  the  one  hundredth  meridian  and  the 
Atlantic  coast,  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  indis 
tinctly  determined  line  where  the  work  of  man  is 
arrested  by  the  northern  cold,  is  divided  into  several 
tolerably  distinct  regions,  each  characterized  by  certain 
peculiarities  of  climate  or  soil  or  under-earth  resources. 
The  greater  part  of  the  field  lies  within  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  or  in  the  basins  of  the  streams  which  flow 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  177 

northwardly  towards  the  Arctic  waters  of  the  sea, 
streams  which,  like  the  Mississippi,  lie  also  within  the 
great  central  part  of  the  continent.  Much  more  than 
half  of  this  great  fertile  realm  is  thus  situated  in  the 
interior  portions  of  the  land  remote  from  the  sea  and 
little  affected  by  the  conditions  which  it  brings.  The 
climate  of  this  section  ranges  through  a  great  scale  of 
variations  both  as  regards  temperature  and  rainfall.  In 
the  extreme  north  the  period  exempt  from  frost  is  limited 
to  about  three  months  in  the  year,  affording  a  scant  time 
for  the  rapidly  growing  small  grains  and  the  roots,  such 
as  the  turnip  and  potato,  which  hasten  swiftly  to  matur 
ity.  These  with  grass  and  a  few  hardy  fruits  constitute 
the  possible  crops.  The  winter  is  so  long  and  severe 
that  cattle  cannot  be  profitably  reared  except  for  domes 
tic  purposes. 

From  the  Canadian  district  southward  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  the  summer  season  continually  lengthens  ; 
though  the  heat  of  the  hottest  term  does  not  increase, 
it  is  protracted  through  a  large  part  of  the  year.  There 
is  only  a  small  portion  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  within 
the  United  States  that  will  not  afford  good  crops  of 
maize  or  Indian  corn,  and  wheat,  the  great  export 
staples  of  the  American  farmer.  The  central  district 
of  this  valley  almost  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  fit  for 
all  the  common  grains  except  rice.  From  the  Ohio  and 
the  Missouri  southward  to  the  Gulf  the  great  length  of 
the  season  permits  cotton  to  be  profitably  planted,  and 
this  is  the  most  important  crop  of  that  district.  In  no 
other  equally  extensive  portion  of  the  earth  is  so  wide 
a  range  of  soil  products  obtainable  as  in  the  fields  of 
this  great  valley.  Throughout  the  greater  portion  of 
its  extent  the  animals  of  the  barnyard,  which  have  been 


1 78       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

the  familiar  attendants  of  "man  from  an  early  period, 
flourish  as  well  as  in  the-  Old  World :  cattle,  horses, 
sheep,  and  swine  prosper  greatly. 

Although  the  climate  of  this  district  is  characterized 
by  more  destructive  storms  than  in  any  other  country 
extensively  inhabited  by  our  race,  it  seems  to  be  on 
the  whole  remarkably  well  suited  to  descendants  from 
the  peoples  of  Northern  Europe.  Except  near  the 
Gulf  coast,  and  in  other  portions  of  the  country  which 
are  liable  to  agues,  the  people" are  not  subject  to  dis 
eases  which  are  in  any  way  caused  by  the  climate. 
They  attain  as  much  vigor  as  in  any  other  country. 

The  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  including  the  shores 
of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the  lands  which  border  the 
river  from  Lake  Ontario  to  its  mouth,  have  in  general 
the  same  character  as  the  country  in  the  northern  part 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The  summer  is  generally 
short  and  the  range  of  crops  somewhat  diminished  by 
the  brief  period  in  which  plants  grow.  In  Michigan 
and  along  the  southern  shores  of  Lakes  Ontario  and 
Erie  the  frosts  come  at  a  later  time  than  in  the  regions 
north  of  these  great  water-basins.  Maize  flourishes  as 
well  as  all  the  ordinary  crops  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
From  Lake  Ontario  to  the  sea  the  climate  is  more 
severe ;  maize  does  not  flourish,  and  agriculture  is  be 
lated  much  as  it  is  in  the  parts  of  the  continental  valley 
•lying  in  the  basin  of  the  Red  River  of  the  North. 
Although  the  climate  of  the  St.  Lawrence  Valley  is 
too  severe  for  the  best  agriculture,  it  evidently  suits 
the  people  of  our  race  ;  nowhere  in  other  lands  on  this 
continent  or  in  Europe  are  they  more  vigorous  than  in 
this  portion  of  North  America.  * 

A  third  area  of  the  fertile  lands  of  North  America 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  179 

lies  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  between  the  rather  unfer 
tile  soils  of  the  Appalachian  Mountains  and  the  sea. 
This  section  extends  from  New  Brunswick  and  Nova 
Scotia  south  to  Northern  Florida.  In  general,  the  cli 
mate  of  this  district  is  more  uniform  in  its  character 
than  that  of  the  central  valley  of  the  continent.  The 
winters  are  less  cold  and  the  summers  less  hot ;  the 
rainfall  is  also  greater  than  in  the  regions  of  that  valley  ; 
the  soil  is  on  the  whole  less  fertile  than  in  the  Missis 
sippi  district,  but  it  admits  of  a  great  variety  of  crops, 
except  in  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  and  a  part  of 
Maine ;  Indian  corn  prospers  as  well  as  all  the  smaller 
grains  and  roots.  The  great  north  and  south  extension, 
as  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  permits  a  considerable 
variety  in  the  products  :  in  the  southern  part  of  the  sec 
tion  oranges  and  rice  will  grow  ;  in  the  northern  region 
the  hardier  grains  and  roots  flourish. 

In  the  peninsula  portion  of  Florida  we  find  one  of 
the  most  peculiar  parts  of  the  American  continent.  It 
is  a  region  of  low  lands,  and  more  than  half  of  its  area 
is  covered  by  swamps  lying  at  a  slight  elevation  above 
the  sea.  The  soil  is  generally  sandy  except  where  it  is 
formed  by  the  decay  of  old  coral  reefs  which  have 
been  elevated  above  the  ocean  level.  This  peninsula 
is  wrapped  about  by  warm  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  by  the  Gulf  Stream,  which  flows  in  the  basin  be 
tween  Florida  and  the  Bahamas.  It  therefore  has  a 
very  warm  winter  climate,  while  the  summer  season, 
owing  to  the  tempering  influence  of  the  neighboring 
seas,  is  of  moderate  heat.  The  result  is,  that  in  the 
southern  portion  of  the  Florida  peninsula  we  have  a 
tropical  land,  where,  as  in  the  region  about  Biscayne 
Bay  and  thence  southward  to  the  extremity  of  Florida, 


l8O      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

the  pineapple,  cocoanut-palm,  and  various  plants  of  the 
true  tropics  find  suitable  conditions. 

(On  the  Pacific  coast,  from  San  Diego  north  to  the 
southern  border  of  Alaska,  there  is  between  the  sterile  — 
because  dry  —  mountain  ranges  of  the  higher  parts  of 
the  Cordilleras  and  the  sea  an  irregular  narrow  strip,  on 
the  average  not  more  than  two  hundred  miles  in  width, 
though  it  has  a  length  of  more  than  fifteen  hundred 
miles, 'which,  like  the  Atlantic  coast-belt,  but  in  a  greater 
degree,  has  its  climate  affected  by  the  neighboring 
ocean,  from  which  it  receives  a  considerable  share  of 
moisture.  Although  a  large  portion  of  this  area,  par 
ticularly  its  southern  part,  is  too  dry  for  the  best  uses 
of  the  farmer,  it  is  characterized  by  a  much  more  equa 
ble  climate  than  any  portion  of  like  extent  in  the  more 
eastern  district^  (  It  is  excellently  well  adapted  to  a 
wide  range  of  fruits,  and  produces  in  certain  portions 
very  large  crops  of  grain  Here,  too,  as  in  the  other 
section,  the  people  appear  to  be  very  vigorous,  giving 
evidence  in  their  condition  that  the  climate  is  well 
suited  to  them. 

Although  the  difference  in  climate  in  the  various 
parts  of  the  fertile  region  of  North  America  is  to  a  con 
siderable  degree  caused  by  the  variety  of  the  seasons  as 
regards  heat  and  cold,  the  character  of  the  climate  in 
these  areas  is  even  more  affected  by  the  amount  of  rain 
which  they  receive  in  the  time  of  the  year  when  plants 
are  growing.  In  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  along  the 
Atlantic  coast  the  quantity  of  this  rain  generally  in 
creases  as  we  go  from  north  southwardly.  Thus  in  the 
region  about  the  head-waters  of  the  Mississippi  the 
annual  rainfall,  together  with  the  amount  of  water  which 
may  be  melted  from  the  snow  which  comes  in  the  winter 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  l8l 

season,  is,  on  the  average,  about  thirty  inches,  while 
along  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  it  amounts  to  more  than  twice 
as  much,  or  about  sixty  inches. 

.  On  the  Atlantic  coast  we  find,  in  the  region  of  Maine 
and  New  Brunswick,  an  annual  fall  of  water  from  the 
skies,  in  the  form  of  rain  or  snow,  amounting  to  about 
forty  inches,  and  again  in  the  southern  portion  of  the 
coast  adjacent  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  the  amount  of  rain 
fall  is  increased,  amounting  to  about  sixty  inches.  The 
reason  for  this  increase  in  the  amount  of  the  rainfall  as 
we  go  southward  is  mainly  found  in  the  fact  that  in  the 
country  about  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  there  is  an  extensive 
region  of  sea  subject  to  a  very  high  temperature  :  the 
water  evaporates  rapidly,  ascends  to  the  clouds,  and 
these  are  borne  inward  by  the  winds,  and  pour  the 
waters  upon  the  land.  The  further  we  go  from  the 
warm  tropical  seas,  the  less  the  amount  of  contribution 
which  comes  in  this  way  to  the  earth,  for  the  reason  that' 
the  air  has  parted  with  its  moisture  before  it  attains 
the  inland  stations.  The  western  portion  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  Valley  exhibits  a  rapid  decrease  in  the  amount 
of  its  rainfall  as  we  approach  the  eastern  base  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  the  reason  for  this  being  that  the 
winds  from  the  Mexican  Gulf  blow  prevailingly  towards 
the  northeast,  and  thus  the  moisture  is  drawn  away 
from  the  Rocky  Mountain  district.  When  we  attain  to 
even  three  or  four  hundred  miles  of  the  base  of  those 
mountains,  the  rainfall  in  the  summer  season  is  usually 
so  scant  that  crops  can  hardly  be  cultivated  with  any 
certainty  of  yield,  except  where  the  soil  can  be  watered 
by  canals  led  from  the  slender  streams. 

In  general,  the  fertile  lands  of  North  America  receive 
more  water  from  the  skies  than  those  of  Europe.     If 


1 82       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

this  rain  fell  at  a  time  most  favorable  for  crops,  hardly 
any  portion  of  its  surface  would  suffer  from  droughts  ; 
but  this  rainfall  comes  in  the  largest  measure  during  the 
winter  season,  when  it  can  be  of  no  service  to  plants, 
and  the  summers  are  frequently  periods  of  drought. 
The  reason  for  this  is  simple :  in  the  winter  time  the 
difference  between  the  temperature  of  the  tropical  seas, 
where  the  vapors  ascend  upward  to  the  clouds,  and  that 
of  the  land  to  the  northward  is  very  great.  Moving 
northward,  the  clouds  are  quickly  chilled,  and  so  com 
pelled  to  give  up  their  vapor  in  the  form  of  rain  or  snow. 
In  the  summer  time,  however,  the  land  is  very  warm, 
and  so  the  moisture  is  not  taken  from  the  clouds  as  in 
the  winter  season.  In  Europe,  where  the  summers  are 
less  hot  than  in  America,  and  where  the  prevailing 
winds  blow  from  over  the  northern  Atlantic,  a  region  of 
seas  warmed  by  the  Gulf  Stream,  the  yearly  rain  is  more 
•even  in  summer  and  winter  seasons  than  in  the  terri 
tory  of  North  America.  The  very  warm  seasons  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  and  the  eastern  coast  frequently 
bring  periods  of  drought  over  large  districts.  Although 
these  droughts  are  sometimes  destructive  to  crops,  they 
are  on  the  whole  not  more  detrimental  than  the  exces 
sive  rains  which  so  often  occur  in  the  summer  season  of 
European  lands.  They  are  more  serious  in  the  district 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  where  at  best  the  rainfall  is  so 
small  in  quantity  that  not  much  of  it  can  be  spared 
without  damage  to  the  fields. 

!  On  the  Pacific  coast]  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  sea  is 
cooler  than  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  or  the 
Atlantic  Oceaii.  next  the  southern  part  of  North  Amer 
ica,  [the  rainfall  is  much  less  in  amount  than  in  the  cen 
tral  and  eastern  portions  of  this  continent.  Again,  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  183 

western  shore  of  the  continent  is  cooled  by  a  strong 
current  setting  down  from  the  north,  and  so  the  winds 
which  blow  over  it  to  the  coast  bring  less  moisture  to 
the  land  than  those  which  come  over  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico.  The  consequence  is  that  this  shore  is  on  the  whole, 
particularly  in  the  southern  part,  much  less  well  watered 
than  the  fertile  parts  of  the  continent.}  While  on  the 
Atlantic  coast  the  rainfall  increases  as  we  go  from  north 
southwardly,  on  the  western  coast  of  the  United  States 
it  decreases  to  the  southward.  Thus  the  peninsula  of 
Southern  California  is  made  a  desert  for  lack  of  water. 
In  the  middle  portions  of  the  coast  near  San  Francisco 
the  rainfall  is  much  greater.  It  is  greater  still  in  Ore 
gon  and  Washington,  and  in  British  Columbia  to  the 
north  of  the  line  of  the  United  States.  In  the  southern 
portions  of  the  state  of  California  only  a  narrow  strip 
next  the  shore  is  sufficiently  watered  for  tillage.  In  the 
valley  of  the  Columbia  River  the  well-watered  district 
is  much  wider.  (All  along  this  coast  the  high  mountains 
near  the  sea  act  as  barriers  to  prevent  the  moist  air 
from  penetrating  any  considerable  distance  into  the 
continent)  Behind  the  Sierra  Nevada  we  have  the 
driest  portion  of  the  continent,  the  interior  region  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  which,  as  before  remarked,  is  un 
fit  for  tillage  except  where  the  land  may  be  irrigated  by 
artificial  means.  ^ 

SOILS    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

As  all  the  needs  of  man  depend  very  much  upon  the 
character  of  the  soil,  we  shall  now  consider  the  nature  of 
this  covering  which  affords  subsistence  to  plants,  and 
through  them  to  all  animals,  including  men.  As  in  all 
other  countries,  the  soils  of  North  America  are  composed 


184      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

of  the  worn-down  rocks  which  have  been  taken  from  the 
solid  state,  broken  into  fine  bits,  and  exposed  to  decay, 
mainly  by  the  action  of  frost  and  water.  All  soils  are 
composed  of  rocky  matter  which,  under  the  action  of 
rain-water,  is  on  its  way  from  the  original  bedding-place 
back  to  the  sea,  where  the  material  is  to  be  remade  in 
the  form  of  new  strata.  The  broken-up,  stony  material 
of  the  soil  is  commingled  with  the  dead  and  decaying 
fragments  of  plants  and  animals,  and  its  fertility  is  in 
part  due  to  the  intercommingling  of  these  two  kinds  of 
material.  In  large  measure  the  fitness  of  the  soil  for 
the  farmer's  use,  as  well  as  for  the  growth  of  wild  vege 
tation,  is  determined  by  the  character  of  the  rocks 
whence  the  grains  of  the  soil  have  come.  If  the  rocks 
were  in  their  time  formed  of  the  remains  of  animals, 
as  were  all  limestones,  then  the  soil  is  fertile  ;  if  it 
happens  that  the  rocks  originally  contained  no  fossil 
animals,  they  are  likely  to  be  sterile  :  thus  while  lime 
stones  by  their  decay  always  make  fertile  soils,  sand 
stones  generally  produce  soils  of  a  sterile  character. 

The  soils  of  North  America  are  divided  into  three 
different  classes.  On  the  north,  within  the  limits  of  the 
region  occupied  by  the  ice  during  the  glacial  epoch,  the 
pebbles  and  sand  and  finer-grained  mud  composing  the 
soil  are  in  all  cases  carried  for  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  point  where  they  originally  lay  in  the  bed 
rocks,  the  bits  from  different  places  churned  together  so 
that  the  resulting  soils  have  a  more  uniform  character 
than  in  other  regions.  Generally,  however,  these  soils 
are  very  deep ;  and,  though  rarely  of  the  highest  fertil 
ity,  owing  to  their  depth  they  remain  permanently 
fruitful.  In  the  region  south  of  Jhe  area  occupied  by 
the  ice  in  the  glacial  epoch  the  soil  of  each  field  is  gen- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  185 

erally  derived  from  the  rocks  immediately  beneath  the 
surface.  Where  the  ground  has  a  considerable  slope 
the  debris  from  the  rocks  may  have  slipped  down  the 
hill  or  been  washed  by  the  rains  to  a  lower  level,  but  it 
is  a  conspicuous  feature  of  this  region  that  the  soils 
have  the  measure  of  fertility  determined  by  the  organic 
character  of  the  under-rocks.  We  can  often  tell  the 
change  in  the  character  of  the  underlying  rock,  although 
that  rock  is  not  exposed  at  the  surface  by  the  sudden 
alteration  in  the  evident  fertility  of  the  soil  as  shown  by 
the  trees  or  by  the  tilled  crops.  •  This  difference  in  the 
soils  due  to  the  variations  in  the  character  of  the  under 
lying  rocks  is  particularly  conspicuous  in  the  Southern 
states  of  this  country.  By  observing  the  effect  of  this 
difference  on  the  life  of  the  farmers,  we  perceive  how 
far  the  peculiar  character  of  the  soil  may  influence  the 
life  of  man.  Thus  in  Kentucky  the  central  portion  of 
the  state  is  underlaid  by  limestones  which  contain  the 
fossilized  forms  of  animals  whose  remains  afford  good 
food  for  plants  and  which  have  by  their  decay  formed 
a  very  rich  soil  coating.  All  this  limestone  area  is 
extremely  fertile ;  the  people  have  grown  wealthy  from 
farming,  and  attain  a  high  state  of  civilization.  In  the 
eastern  part  of  that  state  the  rocks  are  mostly  composed 
of  sand,  and  afford  very  lean  soils.  In  this  section  the 
people  have  remained  poor,  and  the  progress  of  civiliza 
tion  has  been  very  much  retarded. 

A  yet  further  effect  due  to  these  peculiarities  of  soils 
may  be  seen  in  the  history  of  the  civil  war  between  the 
states  of  the  North  and  South.  All  the  fertile  lands  of 
the  South  were  occupied  by  farms  tilled  by  slaves.  In 
the  regions  of  lean  soil  it  was  not  profitable  to  use  slaves 
in  farming,  for  the  reason  that  no  crops  could  be  reared 


1 86      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

which  were  valuable  for  export.  The  result  was  that 
the  mountain  portion  of  the  South,  the  Appalachian 
district,  from  the  head-waters  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Poto 
mac  southward  to  western  North  Carolina,  Northern 
Georgia,  and  Eastern  Tennessee,  were  occupied  by  peo 
ple  who  had  no  interest  in  slavery,  and  who  were  not 
effective  supporters  of  the  Rebellion.  They  were  largely 
Union  men,  giving  little  help  to  the  Southern  cause.  It 
seems  not  unlikely  that  the  failure  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  to  attain  its  independence  may  in  consid 
erable  measure  have  depended  upon  this  matter  of  soils. 
A  third  group  of  soils  is  formed  of  the  deposits  made 
on  the  banks  of  rivers  in  times  of  their  overflow.  These 
alluvial  terraces  are  built  up  in  times  when  the  river 
carries  its  flood  waters  over  a  considerable  area  occu 
pied  by  forests  or  other  plants  on  either  side  of  the 
stream.  Penetrating  into  the  interstices  of  these  usually 
thickset  growths,  the  current  of  the  water  is  arrested 
and  a  good  part  of  its  mud  falls  down  upon  the  earth. 
With  the  succession  of  floods  through  many  thousand 
years,  sheets  of  fine-grained  soil  become  very  extensive. 
Thus  in  the  lower  part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  below 
the  junction  of  the  Missouri,  the  alluvial  plains  occupy 
an  area  of  nearly  thirty  thousand  square  miles.  Because 
a  large  part  of  this  alluvial  deposit  is  composed  of 
richer  soils  taken  from  the  margins  of  the  smaller 
streams  near  the  head-waters  of  the  main  river,  they 
always  have  a  higher  measure  of  fertility.  Alluvial 
plains  along  the  great  rivers  always  afford  lands  en 
titled  to  rank  among  the  richest  of  those  which  are 
tilled  by  man.  Although  alluvial  soils  are  most  com 
mon  in  the  region  south  of  the  district,  they  are  to  a 
certain  extent  found  within  that  ancient  realm  of  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  iS/ 

ice.  They  are  rarer  and  less  extensive  in  the  ice  dis 
trict,  for  the  reason  that  in  such  a  country  the  deep 
layers  of  gravel  and  sand  retain  the  water  of  the  flood 
times  and  deliver  it  slowly  to  the  streams,  and  thus 
avoid  the  peculiar  flooding  which  brings  about  the  -con 
struction  of  such  alluvial  plains  as  those  which  exist  in 
the  Mississippi  Valley. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the  richer  soils  of  the 
United  States  lie  in  regions  which  are  to  the  south  of 
the  area  occupied  by  ice  during  the  glacial  period,  or  in 
parts  of  the  field  where  the  ice  was  thin  and  did  not  by 
its  deposits  greatly  affect  the  character  of  the  soil.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  earth  affords  in  glacial  fields  soils 
which  are  more  enduring  to  the  tax  which  tillage  puts 
upon  them.  They  do  not  wear  out  so  rapidly,  and  this 
for  the  reason  that  the  pebbles  are  numerous  and  con 
stantly  in  process  of  decay,  and  by  this  decay  contin 
ually  yield  new  stores  of  plant  food.  Thus  in  Virginia 
and  the  neighboring  states  a  good  deal  of  the  soil  has 
so  far  been  worn  out  by  tillage,  so  much  of  its  fertile 
materials  have  been  shipped  away  in  the  ashy  matter  of 
the  exported  products,  that  they  no  longer  yield  crops 
which  are  profitable  to  the  farmer  ;  but  in  New  Eng 
land,  though  the  soil  was  originally  poorer  than  in  those 
states  south  of  the  glacial  area,  the  soil  is,  on  the  whole, 
about  as  good  as  when  the  country  was  first  settled. 

There  are  certain  peculiar  kinds  of  soils  in  North 
America  which  deserve  particular  mention.  The  greater 
part  of  the  area  which  has  been  brought  to  the  use  of 
the  farmer  has  been  won  from  old  forest  lands.  It  may 
be  said  in  general  that  all  the  regions  east  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  except  a  portion  of  Illinois  and  Indiana,  were  origi 
nally  wooded.  To  win  these  forest-covered  soils  to  tillage 


1 88      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

requires  a  great  deal  of  labor  in  order  to  remove  the 
forests  and  to  get  the  ground  clear  of  the  roots  of  the 
trees.  In  doing  this  work  the  pioneers  generally  fol 
lowed  a  method  which  they  learned  from  the  Indians. 
They  spared  themselves  the  labor  of  cutting  down  the 
trees  and  burning  their  great  trunks  and  branches  by 
cutting  a  ring  of  bark  from  the  trunk  near  the  surface 
of  the  ground,  which  caused  the  trees  to  die.  Then 
cutting  away  the  underbrush,  they  proceeded  to  plant 
their  crops  in  the  interspaces  between  the  great  trunks. 
Gradually  the  deadened  wood  decayed,  so  that  in  ten  or 
fifteen  years  it  practically  disappeared  from  the  ground. 
Even  with  this  simple  but  very  advantageous  practice 
the  process  of  winning  a  forest-covered  surface  to  tillage 
is  slow  and  laborious. 

So,  too,  in  the  countries  originally  covered  by  ice  the 
first  settlers  had  a  hard  struggle  to  fit  the  soil  for  the 
plough.  The  larger  part  of  these  lands  which  were 
recently  ice-ridden  are  covered  with  great  bowlders, 
broken  from  their  bed  places  in  the  rocks  and  scattered 
over  the  surface  of  the  ground.  These  stones  had  to 
be  removed  from  the  path  of  the  plough,  built  into 
walls,  or,  if  they  were  too  heavy  for  removal,  buried  at 
a  depth  beneath  the  soil.  In  the  greater  part  of  the 
region  recently  occupied  by  glaciers  it  requires  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  days'  labor  to  remove  the  stones 
from  an  acre  field  so  that  the  plough  may  do  its  work. 
Generally  this  bowlder-strewn  region  was  forest-clad,  so 
the  labor  of  removing  the  wood  must  be  added  to  the 
task  which  was  imposed  on  the  soil-tiller  in  the  prepara 
tion  of  his  land  for  use.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how 
great  has  been  the  toil  of  those  who  have  preceded  us 
in  this  country,  who  have  necessarily  given  their  lives 
to  the  subjugation  of  the  land. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  189 

In  the  greater  part  of  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Wisconsin 
and  in  the  most  of  the  country  west  of  the  Mississippi 
the  conditions  are  as  favorable  for  the  beginning  of 
tillage  as  they  were  unfavorable  in  the  eastern  part 
of  the  United  States.  When  in  the  process  of  the 
settlement  of  the  country  the  pioneers  came  to  the 
central  and  western  portion  of  the  land,  they  found 
an  exceedingly  fertile  region  where  forests  were  rare, 
being  generally  limited  to  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  the  rivers.  This  vast  expanse  of  country,  contain 
ing  almost  as  much  fertile  land  as  was  included  in 

o 

the  forest  country  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  United 
States,  was  not  only  without  woods,  but  usually  without 
the  covering  of  bowlders  which  was  such  a  hindrance 
in  the  region  in  and  about  New  England.  This  prairie 
district  did  not  begin  to  be  settled  until  about  the  end 
of  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century.  We  see 
in  part  the  peculiar  advantage  afforded  by  this  open 
land  to  the  farmer  in  the  fact  that  while  it  required 
about  two  hundred  years  to  push  the  settlements  of 
the  white  man  from  the  Atlantic  coast  westward  to 
the  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  it  took  less  than  half  a  cen 
tury  to  carry  the  settlements  for  nearly  twice  that 
distance  farther  to  the  westward.  Of  course  some 
thing  of  this  rapid  march  of  the  people  to  the  west 
ward  is  due  to  steam  transportation  on  the  water  and 
the  land,  but  in  large  part  the  swiftness  of  the  move 
ment  is  owing  to  the  peculiarly  open  character  of  the 
country  which  has  been  settled  in  the  last  half-century. 
We  do  not  certainly  know  the  causes  which  led  to 
the  formation  of  the  prairies.  In  large  part  they  are 
doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  the  rainfall  diminishes 
as  we  go  westward  towards  the  Rocky  Mountains, 


IQO      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES  " 

and  many  of  our  trees  cannot  stand  the  lessened 
moisture.  In  part  the  prairies  are  probably  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  Indians  were  in  the  habit  of  burning 
the  grass  in  the  open  or  unwooded  districts,  and  the 
undergrowth  of  the  forests  as  well,  in  order  to  secure 
better  pasturage  for  the  wild  animals  which  they 
hunted.  By  these  annual  fires  young  saplings  were 
killed  off,  and  when  the  older  trees  died,  the  forest  dis 
appeared.  In  this  way  century  by  century  the  original 
forests  were  pushed  back  to  the  eastward  and  replaced 
by  prairies.  That  this  is  the  case  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  when  what  is  now  called  the  "barrens"  of  Ken 
tucky  was  first  occupied  by  whites,  the  larger  portion 
of  the  western  section  of  the  area  was  without  woods 
because  of  the  frequent  fires  set  by  the  savages. 
When  the  Indians  were  driven  away  and  these  annual 
conflagrations  ceased  to  ravage  the  country,  the  woods 
rapidly  regained  the  field. 

In  the  region  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  there  are 
vast  fields  of  bare  rock  lying  where  the  slopes  are 
so  steep  that  the  soil  cannot  maintain  itself  upon  them. 
Over  yet  larger  fields  there  is  a  thick  soil  formed  in 
an  earlier  time  when  the  rainfall  was  greater  than 
now,  and  when  the  conditions  which  make  the  soils 
were  present  in  a  way  in  which  they  no  longer  exist 
in  that  country.  The  existence  of  a  greater  rainfall 
in  recent  times  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  all  the  dead 
seas,  those  lakes  without  an  outlet  to  the  ocean, 
which  now  frequently  occur  in  that  region,  show  by 
old  shore  benches  around  their  margins  that  they 
have  recently  shrunk  to  a  small  part  of  their  former 
size.  In  these  parts  of  the  continent  the  soils  are 
not  only  sterile  for  lack  of  .moisture,  but  they  are 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA  IQI 

very  often  made  even  more  desolate  than  they  would 
otherwise  be,  by  the  fact  that  certain  solid  substances 
work  up  from  the  depths  of  the  earth  and  make  a 
crust  upon  the  surface.  This  crust  is  so  alkaline 
that  it  kills  many  plants  which  otherwise  might  with 
stand  the  drought.  There  are  but  few  vegetable  spe 
cies  which  are  adapted  to  grow  upon  it,  and  none  of 
these  are  of  any  use  to  man. 

The  conditions  which  lead  to  the  formation  of  these 
alkali  plains  is  worth  the  attention  of  the  observer, 
for  the  reason  that  their  history  shows  us  a  beautiful 
process  of  the  soils,  —  one  which  generally  greatly  serves 
the  needs  of  vegetation  and  only  in  exceptional  cases 
is  hurtful  to  plants.  We  will  therefore  turn  aside  for 
the  moment  to  trace  the  history  of  this  peculiar  salt 
coating  which  is  visible  in  the  alkali  districts  of  our 
western  plains  and  in  some  of  the  valleys  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  In  all  fields,  except  perhaps  in 
those  small  areas  of  the  earth  where  scarce  .any  rain 
fall  occurs,  there  is  a  constant  and  tolerably  rapid  decay 
of  the  rocky  matter  contained  in  the  grains  of  the  soil. 
By  this  decay  a  certain  amount  of  lime,  potash,  and 
soda,  in  the  form  of  various  chemical  combinations 
with  other  materials,  is  brought  into  the  state  in  which 
they  may  be  dissolved  in  water.  In  ordinary  soil  in  a 
region  of  sufficient  rainfall  a  portion  of  this  material 
is  constantly  washed  away,  and  so  the  amount  of  these 
substances  is  kept  within  hurtful  limits,  within  the  lim 
its  in  which  they  are  advantageous  and  not  damaging  to 
plants. 

When,  however,  a  soil  which  has  been  formed  in  a 
period  of  more  abundant  rainfall  comes  to  be  very  dry, 
as  is  the  case  in  our  western  lands,  the  occasional 


IQ2      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

rains  soak  the  soil  with  water,  but  do  not  send  such  an 
amount  of  fluid  through  the  porous  material  as  to  wash 
away  the  excess  of  alkalin*  matter.  Then  when  sum 
mer  droughts  come,  and  the  heat  of  the  air  causes  the 
water  next  the  atmosphere  to  pass  away  in  vapor,  the 
alkaline  material  which  this  water  contained,  not  going 
away  in  the  process  of  evaporation,  remains  as  a  crust 
on  the  surface.  As  soon  as  the  surface  becomes  dry, 
what  is  called  capillary  attraction  draws  up  more  water 
from  the  depths  towards  the  surface.  This  water  brings 
yet  more  alkaline  matter,  and  gradually  the  coating  of  the 
salts  next  the  surface  become  thicker  and  thicker. 

Beginning  in  the  eastern  portion  of  these  plains  with 
a  certain  amount  of  rainfall,  say  twenty  inches  each  year, 
we  find  no  alkaline  coating  created  ;  going  further  west 
ward,  where  the  rainfall  is  less  considerable,  we  begin 
to  find  the  crust  formed  in  situations  favorable  for  its 
accumulation.  Yet  further  west,  with  a  diminished  rain 
fall,  the  coating  formed  in  the  dry  season  is  often  so 
thick  that  it  is  not  altogether  dissolved  by  the  rains  of 
the  wet  season,  and  so  the  surface  is  rendered  sterile 
beyond  the  sterility  which  is  given  by  drought.  In  all 
fertile  lands  these  movements  of  salt  water  towards  the 
surface  in  times  of  drought  have  a  beneficial  effect,  for  it 
is  not  more  than  sufficient  to  bring  the  desired  food 
to  the  roots  of  the  plants.  Ordinary  droughts,  though 
they  may  in  some  cases  harm  the  crops  of  one  season, 
are  apt  to  help  those  of  the  following  year  when  the 
rainfall  is  more  abundant,  and  so  in  a  general  way  the 
upward  movement  of  these  salts  is  beneficial.  It  is 
only  where  the  rainfall  has  not  sufficiently  leached  away 
enough  of  the  saline  matter  that  it  becomes  injurious  to 
plants  by  forming  an  alkaline  uicrustation. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 


DOMESTICATED    PLANTS    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

The  value  of  a  country  to  mankind  depends  more 
upon  the  useful  plants  that  will  grow  within  it  than 
upon  any  other  natural  feature.  On  the  amount  of  pro 
duction  of  those  articles  which  serve  as  food  for  man  or 
his  domesticated  animals  the  agriculture  of  a  country 
necessarily  depends.  Measured  by  the  plants  which  fit 
the  soil  and  climate,  North  America  may  be  deemed 
extremely  well  suited  to  human  use.  All  the  grains, 
roots,  and  fruits  which  were  known  in  the  Old  World 
before  the  discovery  of  America  do  well  in  one  part  or 
another  of  the  country  ;  except  some  of  the  peculiar 
kinds  of  millet  grown  in  the  central  parts  of  Africa,  all 
the  grain  crops  are  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  tilled  in 
this  country. 

In  addition  to  the  small  grains,  wheat,  rye,  oats,  barley, 
etc.,  which  came  to  this  country  from  Europe,  America 
has  furnished  to  the  world  from  its  own  soil  the  large 
and  very  productive  grain  known  as  maize  or  Indian 
corn,  which  in  North  America,  between  Mexico  and  the 
northern  part  of  the  United  States,  flourishes  so  well 
that  it  produces  nearly  twice  as  much  food  per  acre  as 
any  of  the  grains  in  the  Old  World.  Although  maize 
will  grow  tolerably  well  in  many  countries,  the  peculiarly 
hot  and  rather  dry  character  of  the  American  summer 
suits  it  particularly  well,  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  an 
essentially  American  crop.  Besides  maize  the  American 
land  has  yielded  two  valuable  food  plants,  —  the  potato 
and  the  tomato.  The  potato  has  been  carried  from 
America  and  extensively  introduced  in  the  cooler  parts 
of  all  the  continents.  It  differs  from  any  other  of  the 
edible  roots  or  tubers  in  the  fact  that  it  flourishes 


194      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

through  a  wider  range  of  climate  than  any  food-produc 
ing  plant  of  the  same  general  nature.  It  grows  well  as 
far  north  as  any  of  the  grains  flourish,  and  it  also  yields 
tolerably  abundant  crops  near  down  to  the  tropics. 

In  general,  the  food-producing  plants  of  North  Amer 
ica  very  closely  resemble  those  of  Europe.  In  the  more 
southern  portion  of  the  country,  however,  certain  tropical 
or  subtropical  vegetables,  such  as  the  banana  and  plan 
tain  and  the  sweet  potato,  are  more  successful  than  in 
any  part  of  the  Old  World  occupied  by  Europeans. 
From  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  northward  to  the  southern 
portion  of  Mexico,  and  including  the  southern  part  of 
Florida  and  a  portion  of  California  coast,  vegetables  of 
a  tropical  character  such  as  palms,  pineapples,  guavas, 
as  well  as  the  sugar-cane,  attain  their  highest  perfec 
tion.  This  region  also  affords  crops  of  some  of  the 
ordinary  grains,  but  they  do  not  attain  their  best  develop 
ment  there.  The  food  plants  of  the  United  States 
proper  are  evenly  distributed  as  regards  their  perfection 
of  growth  over  the  whole  country.  With  the  exception 
of  the  sweet  potato,  the  ochra,  and  some  of  the  melons 
which  are  limited  in  their  best  development  to  the 
southern  half  of  the  United  States,  essentially  the  same 
kinds  of  food-yielding  vegetables  can  be  grown  through 
all  the  area  of  those  states.  North  of  the  line  of  the 
United  States  the  number  of  the  plants  which  can  be 
grown  for  food  purposes  rapidly  diminishes.  Indian 
corn  does  not  flourish  in  any  part  of  the  Canadian  dis 
trict.  Many  of  the  roots  are  not  successful  there. 
That  part  of  the  world,  however,  contains  a  wide  area 
suitable  for  the  small  grains. 

The  whole  of  North  America,  as  far  north  as  it  is  fit 
for  the  purpose  of  tillage,  is  we±l  adapted  to  the  growth 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  195 

of  the  grasses  which  when  dried  afford  the  principal 
winter  food  of  our  ordinary  domesticated  animals.  A 
long,  hot  summer,  with  the  generally  large  supply  of 
rain  with  intervening  periods  of  very  dry  weather,  favors 
the  growth  and  harvesting  of  these  crops.  The  actual 
value  of  the  staple  crops  which  are  cut  and  dried  for 
the  barnyard  animals  in  northern  regions  usually  exceeds 
that  of  any  other  single  agricultural  product,  and  as  re 
gards  the  production  of  these  articles  of  food  for  beasts, 
North  America  has  in  general  an  advantage  over  any 
other  district  of  equal  size  known  in  the  world.  Taking 
the  continent  as  a  whole,  it  supports  more  species  of 
plants  suited  for  the  food  of  man  than  are  tilled  in 
Europe,  and  probably  as  great  a  number  as  any  other 
continent  affords. 

Of  the  plants  which  though  not  serving  for  food  yet 
aid  the  work  of  man,  North  America  has  many  impor 
tant  varieties,  some  of  which  are  indigenous ;  others  have 
been  introduced  from  foreign  lands.  The  most  impor 
tant  of  these,  which  do  not  come  in  the  group  of  food- 
producers  and  which  attain  peculiar  success  in  North 
America,  are  the  cotton  and  the  tobacco  plants.  Of 
both  these  articles  North  America  produces  the  largest 
amount  which  enters  into  the  commerce  of  the  world. 
Cotton  is  not  a  native  plant,  it  having  been  introduced 
from  either  Asia  or  Africa.  Tobacco,  at  least  the  spe 
cies  which  enters  much  into  use,  is  in  its  origin  pecu 
liar  to  the  New  World,  and  it  is  so  much  better  suited 
to  the  climate  of  North  America  than  to  any  other 
region  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  characteristic  feature  of 
its  vegetation.  The  cotton  crop  of  North  America 
is  now  all  produced  in  the  region  south  of  the  Ohio,  the 
Missouri,  and  the  Potomac  rivers,  principally  in  the 


196      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

southern  Atlantic  states  and  those  which  border  upon 
the  Gulf.  The  plant  will  grow  over  the  larger  part  of 
the  tilled  area  of  the  continent,  but  only  in  this  southern 
field  is  the  summer  long  enough  to  permit  it  to  ripen  its 
seeds  and  thus  produce  the  fibres  of  cotton  which  are 
found  upon  them.  Tobacco,  on  the  other  hand,  is  cul 
tivated  from  the  northern  part  of  the  United  States 
to  Central  America.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  this  plant 
that  the  quality  of  the  product  varies  very  much  in  dif 
ferent  parts  of  the  country  and  even  on  adjacent  fields  ; 
but  it  can  be  reared  in  any  part  of  the  land  where  the 
summer  is  moderately  long  and  hot. 

In  the  tropical  regions  of  America  another  plant  char 
acteristic  of  the  continent,  the  Agava,  or  century  plant, 
is  serviceable  for  making  a  very  strong  fibre  serving 
many  of  the  purposes  of  hemp.  A  fermented  drink 
much  used  in  Mexico  is  made  from  its  juices.  It  is 
only  in  the  fruits  that  the  products  of  the  soil  of  North 
America  are  exceeded  by  those  of  the  Old  World.  Cer 
tain  fruits,  as  for  instance  the  orange,  the  banana,  and 
the  apple  and  peach,  are  more  successful  in  the  United 
States  than  in  the  Old  World  ;  but  the  grape,  the  nee- 
tarine,  the  fig,  and  the  date,  and  many  other  smaller 
fruits,  are,  on  the  whole,  more  successfully  reared  in  the 
Old  World  than  on  this  continent. 

ANIMALS. 

The  native  animals  of  North  America  differ  more  in 
their  character  from  those  of  Europe  and  Asia  than  do 
the  plants  of  the  two  countries.  While  the  general  like 
ness  between  the  animal  life  of  the  two  regions  is  great, 
there  are  many  singular  features  to  note.  We  shall  not 
give  any  extended  account  of  the  less  important  crea- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  197 

tures  such  as  the  radiates,  molluscs,  or  articulated  animals, 
which  though  very  interesting  to  naturalists  are  little 
known  to  the  common  reader.  We  shall  pass  lightly 
over  them  and  give  most  of  our  attention  to  the  higher 
and  more  familiar  creatures  found  among  our  back-boned 
animals, —  the  group  to  which  man  himself  belongs. 

Among  the  lower  creatures  of  the  sea  and  land,  the 
so-called  invertebrates,  or  creatures  lacking  the  peculiar 
ity  of  a  bony  internal  skeleton  of  the  back-boned  kind, 
we  find  several  forms  which  are  so  interesting  that  they 
must  receive  at  least  a  passing  notice.  In  the  kindred 
of  the  mollusca,  or  shell-fish,  we  note  the  fact  that  in 
the  rivers  of  North  America,  particularly  those  south  of 
Canada,  we  have  a  very  wonderful  variety  of  beautiful 
creatures  commonly  known  as  fresh-water  clams,  called 
by  naturalists  Unionidae,  or  Naiades.  In  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  especially  in  the  head-waters  of  its  streams  on 
the  eastern  side  of  the  valley,  these  forms  are  more 
plentifully  developed  than  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world.  Almost  every  considerable  stream  has  its  pecu 
liar  species  which  is  not  found  in  other  waters.  It  would 
be  possible  for  the  naturalist  who  is  well  acquainted  with 
the  variety  of  these  creatures,  by  taking  the  individuals 
from  any  of  the  lesser  rivers,  to  tell  on  just  what  waters 
he  had  been  placed,  even  if  he  had  been  conveyed  to  this 
station  in  ignorance  as  to  the  course  of  his  journey. 
The  Naiades  are  peculiar  in  many  ways.  In  the  first 
place,  they  are  capable  of  travelling  with  considerable 
freedom  by  means  of  an  extended  organ  commonly 
called  the  foot,  which  is  essentially  like  the  instrument 
by  which  the  snail  crawls  over  the  surface  of  the  land. 
This  contrivance  is  of  great  use  to  them,  because  they 
are  often  swept  down  the  streams  in  times  of  flood  and 


198  NATURAL    PRODUCTS    AND    RESOURCES 

have  to  crawl  back  to  a  place  proper  for  their  needs. 
The  females  have  also  a  pouch  along  the  side  of  the 
gills  in  which  the  eggs  are  stored  and  hatched,  in  place 
of  being  thrown  forth  into  the  water,  as  is  the  case  with 
other  shell-fish.  By  this  means  the  young  are  secured 
against  the  danger  of  being  swept  away  in  times 
when  the  river  flows  very  swiftly.  Like  their  kindred 
in  other  lands,  these  Naiades  frequently  produce  very 
beautiful  pearls  though  not  those  of  most  value  for 
ornament. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  reason  why  these  Unioni- 
dae  have  undergone  such  an  abundant  development 
and  have  attained  so  great  a  diversity  in  American 
waters.  This  reason  seems  to  be  in  part  at  least  as 
follows  :  the  rivers  south  -of  the  Ohio,  at  a  good  height 
above  the  sea,  have  been  for  many  geological  periods 
in  about  their  present  state.  The  land  has  not  been 
lowered  beneath  the  sea ;  glaciers  have  not  overridden 
its  surface,  and  thus  the  creatures  have  been  able  to 
go  on  from  geological  period  to  geological  period, 
gradually  changing  and  developing  their  peculiarities. 
There  is,  perhaps,  no  other  region  in  the  world  where 
an  equally  extensive  system  of  rivers  has  for  so  long 
a  geological  time  been  preserved  from  submergence 
beneath  the  sea  and  the  destruction  which  glaciers 
would  bring,  —  the  accidents  of  long-continued  drought 
which  might  dry  up  their  waters,  or  other  mischances 
which  might  interrupt  the  growth  and  development  of 
these  forms.  We  thus  see  how  the  variety  and  beauty 
in  the  group  of  animals  arid  plants  may  be  determined 
by  the  geological  history  of  the  region  they  occupy. 
Unlike  most  other  forms  of  living  beings,  these  slow- 
moving  creatures  cannot  migrate  to  meet  the  needs 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  IQ9 

of  changing  climate,  and  so  are  dependent  on  the 
conditions  of  the  part  of  the  world  in  which  they 
dwell. 

Among  the  snails,  the  remote  kindred  of  the  water 
molluscs,  we  find  certain  peculiarities  characteristic  of 
this  country.  In  the  Old  World  there  are  several 
species  of  very  large  shell-bearing  snails  which,  to  cer 
tain  peoples,  prove  an  attractive  article  of  food.  None 
of  these  large  forms  are  native  in  North  America,  and 
so  even  among  our  aborigines,  pressed  by  hunger  as 
they  often  were,  these  creatures  were  rarely  used  for 
food.  Yet  another  interesting  feature  in  our  mollusca 
consists  in  the  great  development  of  oysters  in  the  salt 
and  brackish  waters  of  the  eastern  coast  of  the  United 
States.  Although  oysters  are  tolerably  abundant  along 
many  other  shores,  this  group  attains  a  greater  luxu 
riance  on  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America  than  in 
any  other  region.  The  forms  grow  to  a  larger  size,  and 
apparently  find  the  conditions  better  suited  to  them 
than  those  of  any  other  part  of  the  world. 

Among  the  kinsmen  of  our  ordinary  crab  and  lobster 
the  American  coast  affords  a  peculiar  crustacean,  known 
as  Limulus,  or  king  crab.  This  creature  is  peculiar  to 
the  waters  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  to  the  coast  of 
North  America  as  far  north  as  Nova  Scotia.  The 
creature  is  interesting,  not  only  on  account  of  its  very 
peculiar  form,  but  from  certain  singular  features  in  its 
personal  and  race  history.  It  has  the  curious  habit  of 
shedding  at  once  in  an  annual  molting  the  skin  over 
all  the  external  parts  of  its  body,  leaving  its  envelope 
split  open  along  the  broad  front  margin  in  such  perfect 
state  that  the  collector  often  supposes  he  has  the  real 
animal  in  his  possession,  when,  in  fact,  it  is  only  the 


2OO      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

abandoned  shell  which  has  grown  too  small  for  the 
creature  in  the  course  of  growth.  Equally  interesting 
is  the  fact  that  this  singular  animal  is  the  last  survival 
of  a  series  of  similar  forms  extending  from  the  Devonian 
time  to  the  present  day.  Its  kindred  were  once  dis 
tributed  far  and  wide  in  the  ocean  waters,  but  are  now 
no  longer  found  in  the  Atlantic  except  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  America. 

The  fishes  of  North  America  contain  numerous  in 
teresting  forms.  The  waters  of  the  Mississippi  and 
some  of  the  streams  which  head  near  its  tributaries 
abound  in  gar-pikes,  commonly  called  alligator  gars 
from  the  fact  that  the  surface  of  their  bodies  is  pro 
tected  by  a  strong  coating  of  bone-like  plates,  forming 
an  effective  armor.  This  creature,  like  the  king  crab, 
is  also  a  survival  of  a  pattern  of  creatures  which  were 
once  common  the  world  over,  but  are  now  limited  to 
American  waters.  In.  the  Mississippi  there  are  several 
other  fishes  which  recall  the  ancient  life,  and  they,  like 
the  Naiades  before  referred  to,  show  that  this  system 
of  rivers  has  proceeded  from  the  distant  past. 

Among  the  peculiar  animals  of  North  America,  species 
of  rattlesnakes  and  some  other  reptiles  deserve  mention. 
The  rattlesnake  is  a  most  peculiar  serpent  in  that  it  has 
upon  its  tail  shapely  bits  of  hard  dried  skin,  which  when 
shaken  by  the  rapid  movement  which  takes  place  in  the 
hinder  part  .of  the  serpent's  body  when  it  is  excited,  pro 
duce  a  shrill  humming  sound  quite  like  that  made  by  the 
cicada,  or  locust,  when  it  is  calling  its  mate.  Although 
there  are  a  number  of  other  poisonous  snakes  in  North 
America,  these  species  of  crotalus  are  by  far  the  most  to  be 
feared,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  the  most  plentiful  and 
widely  distributed.  They  range- from  the  tropics  north- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2OI 

ward  to  near  the  northern  limits  of  the  United  States, 
but  are  most  venomous  and  abundant  in  the  southern 
half  of  the  continent  One  other  noteworthy  serpent 
alone  can  here  be  referred  to.  This  is  the  Elaps,  or 
coral  snake  of  the  Carolina  district,  a  beautiful  creature 
closely  akin  to  exceedingly  deadly  forms  which  occur  in 
South  America.  A  singular  feature  of  the  Elaps  is  that, 
although  it  has  poison  glands  and  fangs  like  other  deadly 
serpents,  it  is  not  known  ever  to  use  them,  and  is  reck 
oned  as  innocuous. 

In  many  parts  of  the  region  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  thence  southward  to  the  Isthmus,  alligators 
abound,  and  in  places  they  attain  a  great  size.  In  the 
tropical  portion  of  the  continent  there  are  numerous 
crocodiles,  a  larger  and  fiercer  kinsman  of  the  alligator ; 
but  this  species  only  extends  beyond  the  tropics  in  the 
extreme  southeastern  corner  of  Florida,  where  there  is 
a  little  colony  of  them  containing  in  all  perhaps  a  few 
hundred  individuals. 

The  birds  of  North  America  are,  in  general,  very  much 
like  those  of  Europe  ;  indeed,  the  common  names  of  the 
sparrows,  wrens,  robins,  etc.,  which  were  first  invented 
for  European  birds,  were  reasonably  applied  to  many 
American  species  which,  though  not  just  the  same  as 
their  European  kindred,  resemble  them  closely.  There 
are,  however,  some  peculiar  birds  in  North  America 
which  have  no  close  relations  in  the  Old  World ;  the 
humming-birds,  the  turkey,  the  mocking-bird,  etc.,  give 
a  singular  character  to  the  winged  life  of  this  country. 

Among  the  suck-giving  forms  there  are  a  number  of 
creatures  peculiar  to  this  continent.  Of  these  the  most 
conspicuous  is  the  bison,  commonly  misnamed  the  buf 
falo,  which  at  the  time  when  the  country  was  first  dis- 


2O2  NATURAL    PRODUCTS    AND    RESOURCES 

covered  by  the  whites  existed  in  exceeding  abundance 
on  the  open  plains  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  occa 
sionally  penetrated  in  small  bands  through  the  woods 
as  far  as  the  shores  of  the  Carolinas  and  Virginia.  It 
is  probable  that  nowhere  else  in  the  world,  at  least 
in  modern  geographical  times,  was  there  any  so  large 
a  beast  existing  in  such  vast  droves  as  these  bisons. 
They  have  now  been  so  far  destroyed  in  the  advance  of 
civilization,  that  in  place  of  the  millions  which  existed 
'at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  there  are  probably  not 
five  hundred  now  living  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States.  A  few  thousand  probably  survive  in  the  for 
ests  north  of  the  line  between  the  United  States  and 
Canada. 

The  grizzly  bear,  the  largest  and  most  ferocious  beast 
of  his  kind,  greater  than  any  known  in  Europe  in  his 
toric  times,  still  abounds  in  the  mountain  districts  of  the 
Cordilleras  from  the  Mexican  line  northward  to  the  high 
north.  In  the  United  States,  and  southward  to  South 
America,  especially  in  the  woodland  districts,  opossums 
are  found.  These  creatures  belong  to  the  group  of 
suck-giving  animals,  but  differ  from  those  familiarly 
known  to  us,  in  the  fact  that  they  have  pouches  on  the 
abdomen  in  which  the  young  are  nurtured  for  some 
months  after  their  birth.  There  are  three  species  of 
these  opossums  known  in  North  America ;  the  group  is 
very  much  more  abundant  in  South  America,  where  it 
is  represented  by  about  thirty-five  varieties.  No  kin 
dred  of  these  forms  now  live  on  any  other  of  the  conti 
nents  except  South  America  and  Australia.  When 
white  men  first  visited  Australia,  all  the  suck-giving 
animals  had  this  peculiarity  of  structure.  Among  the 
lesser  mammalian  animals  of  this  country  there  are 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2O3 

some  very  beautiful  forms  which  are  familiar  to  some 
of  the  readers  of  this  book.  These  are  the  various 
kinds  of  ground  squirrels,  all  of  which  are  akin  to  true 
squirrels  which  inhabit  the  trees.  These  ground  squir 
rels  of  the  western  plains,  commonly  known  as  prairie 
dogs,  are  very  interesting  little  creatures,  particularly 
attractive  from  the  fact  that  they  dwell  together  in  col 
onies.  The  ground  squirrels  of  the  eastern  part  of  the 
United  States  are  less  conspicuous  because  they  are 
solitary  animals. 

All  the  other  noteworthy  animals  of  this  continent 
are  more  or  less  perfectly  represented  in  Europe  and 
Asia  by  related  kinds,  so  that  when  the  European 
settlers  came  to  this  country  they  were  able  to  name 
most  of  the  conspicuous  animals  by  their  evident 
likeness  to  European  kinds. 

Although  the  animals  of  North  America  are  in  a 
general  way  like  those  of  the  Old  World,  there  are 
many  kinds  existing  in  Europe  and  Asia,  and  even 
more  in  Africa,  which  find  no  representatives  in  North 
America.  Of  these  we  will  note  a  few  of  the  more 
important.  Southern  Asia  abounds  in  monkeys,  some 
of  them  of  large  size.  North  America  has  but  few 
species  of  these  interesting  animals,  and  none  of  them 
range  north  of  Mexico.  The  hyaenas,  jackals,  tigers, 
leopards,  among  the  beasts  of  prey  of  the  Old  World, 
are  wanting  in  the  New.  Their  place  is  imperfectly 
occupied  by  our  American  panther  and  our  several 
species  of  wild-cat.  The  horse,  though  originally  devel 
oped  on  the  American  continent  in  early  Tertiary 
times,  had  disappeared  from  both  North  and  South 
America  before  the  coming  of  man.  The  true  camel 
and  the  dromedary,  which  along  with  the  horse  have 


2O4      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

played  so  large  a  part  in  the  history  of  man  in  the  Old 
World,  appear  never  to  have  existed  in  America.  In 
their  stead  we  have  in  South  America  the  smaller  and 
less  valuable  vicuna  or  alpaca.  Wild  bulls  and  wild 
goats  were  lacking  in  the  Americas,  the  Rocky  Moun 
tain  sheep,  an  apparently  untamable  animal,  being  their 
only  representative  in  the  New  World. 

Of  the  various  species  of  bulls  known  to  exist  in 
the  Old  World,  although  forms  of  great  size,  there 
existed  but  one  in  this  country  down  perhaps  to  the 
time  when  man  first  came  to  it,  and  that  had  long  ago 
passed  away  before  the  country  was  settled  by  Euro 
peans.  Rhinoceroses  and  hippopotamuses,  together 
with  a  host  of  strange  beasts  peculiar  to  Africa,  have 
had  no  foothold  on  this  continent.  As  a  whole,  the 
larger  back-boned  animals  of  North  America  were  very 
far  inferior  in  variety  and  grade  of  development  to 
those  of  the  Old  World  group  of  lands.  In  this 
respect  the  animal  life  of  the  New  World  is  in  singular 
contrast  to  its  plant  life.  This  is  more  clearly  seen 
when  we  remember  that  while  the  American  continents 
have  given  a  great  many  valuable  vegetables  to  the 
use  of  the  world,  including  the  maize,  potato,  tomato, 
and  the  so-called  Peruvian  bark  from  the  chincona 
tree,  which  affords  quinine,  it  has  not  furnished  a 
single  valuable  animal  to  the  use  of  civilized  man, 
unless  we  count  the  turkey  such  an  important  contri 
bution.  If  we  make  a  list  of  all  the  domesticated 
animals  which  serve  mankind  in  an  important  way, 
including  in  the  list  the  familiar  barnyard  fowls,  we 
have  a  total  of  about  twenty ;  including  the  bee,  the 
cochineal,  and  the  silkworm,  etc.,  there  are  about 
twenty-five  tolerably  well  domesticated  species  of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2O5 

animals  which  have  largely  served  the  interests  of 
man.  Of  these,  twelve  are  suck-giving  animals  which 
have  afforded,  through  their  strength,  their  wool,  their 
meat,  or  in  the  case  of  the  dog  by  their  companionship 
to  man,  help  in  the  advance  of  civilization.  But  one 
out  of  this  list,  the  turkey,  as  before  stated,  is  derived 
from  America,  and  this  creature  is  perhaps  least  of 
all  in  value. 

MINERAL    RESOURCES    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

In  their  savage  state  men  depend  almost  altogether 
for  the  goods  which  the  world  gives  them  upon  the 
native  animals  of  the  land  and  waters,  and  the  wild 
plants  which  yield  nuts,  fruits,  or  fibrous  bark.  From 
the  bodies  of  the  animals  they  obtain  food,  and  from 
their  skins  raiment ;  even  their  bones  serve  them  for 
rude  tools,  points  for  their  spears,  etc.  A  slight  ad 
vance  in  the  arts  brings  men  to  the  stage  where  they 
work  certain  kinds  of  stone  into  the  shape  of  weapons 
or  domestic  utensils.  Yet  further  on  in  the  develop 
ment  of  their  industries  they  burn  certain  kinds  of  clay 
in  the  shape  of  pots  for  cooking  and  storing  food. 
Slowly  they  learn  to  plant  certain  seeds  and  to  reap 
the  harvest.  It  is  only,  however,  when  men  rise  above 
the  state  of  savagery  and  set  their  feet  firmly  on  the 
paths  which  lead  to  civilization  that  they  look  to  the 
under-earth  for  any  contributions  to  their  life.  In  time, 
however,  they  are  led  to  the  use  of  metals. 

Copper,  which  occasionally  occurs  in  its  native  state 
as  a  metal  buried  in  the  rocks,  appears  in  most  cases 
to  have  been  the  first  metallic  substance  to  attract  the 
attention  of  men.  At  first  they  dug  it  from  its  bed- 


2O6      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

places  with  rude  tools.  Gradually,  however,  they  learned 
to  use  fire  with  rude  blowing  instruments,  made  from 
the  hides  of  animals  something  in  the  fashion  of  the 
blacksmith's  bellows,  which  enabled  them  to  produce 
the  metal  not  only  from  the  fragments  containing  it  in 
the  native  state,  but  also  from  the  ores,  or  combinations 
of  the  metal  with  other  substances.  This  art  of  smelt 
ing  copper  by  the  use  of  fire  aided  by  a  blast  appears 
to  have  originated  in  the  Old  World,  and  to  have  had  no 
place  among  the  natives  of  this  country.  As  soon  as 
men  found  the  use  of  fire  in  winning  metals  from  the 
earth,  they  were  put  in  the  way  of  helping  themselves 
to  resources  which  were  denied  to  them  in  their  more 
primitive  state.  They  soon  began  to  mingle  the  molten 
copper  with  tin,  and  thus  made  bronze,  which  is  very 
much  harder  and  better  suited  for  tools,  ornaments,  and 
weapons.  They  naturally  came  in  a  short  time  to  smelt 
iron  ores,  and  thus  to  find  their  way  to  the  use  of  a 
cheaper  and  harder  metal  than  they  had  before  known. 
With  advancing  civilization  this  use  of  the  underground 
resources  in  the  form  of  metals  and  other  mineral  prod 
ucts  has  gone  forward  very  rapidly,  until  now  there  are 
hundreds  of  substances  won  from  the  underground  and 
converted  to  the  needs  of  man. 

We  easily  see  that  while  to  the  American  Indian  and 
other  savages  of  simple  needs,  the  character  of  the 
under-earth  was  of  no  consequence,  as  he  looked  to  the 
surface  alone  for  his  supplies,  the  nature  of  the  rocks 
beneath  the  country  occupied  by  civilized  men  is  a  mat 
ter  of  the  utmost  importance  to  them.  While  the  soil 
is  now,  and  must  ever  be,  the  principal  source  whence 
men  obtain  the  objects  of  necessity  and  the  simpler 
luxuries  in  the  way  of  food  and  jaiment,  the  under-earth 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2O/ 

affords  to  cultured  men  a  share  of  their  needs  only  less 
important  than  that  which  is  secured  from  the  soil. 

The  importance  of  the  mineral  supplies  which  may  be 
won  beneath  the  earth's  surface  is  increased  by  the  fact 
that  these  valuable  products  are  not  found  everywhere, 
but  only  in  favored  places.  All  parts  of  the  world 
which  are  by  climate  fit  for  the  uses  of  man  have  soils 
which  will  produce  food  in  a  certain  abundance,  but 
probably  not  more  than  one-tenth  of  such  regions  have 
below  their  surface  mineral  resources  of  sufficient  value 
to  repay  the  costs  of  winning  them  by  mining.  The 
result  is  that  in  such  favored  regions  it  is  generally 
profitable  to  the  people  to  devote  a  great  part  of  their 
attention  to  the  industries  which  will  secure  these  prod 
ucts  of  the  deeper  earth.  Even  if  the  soil  of  such 
districts  be  barren,  it  may  be  advantageous  for  men 
to  dwell  there  and  win  their  living  by  mining  work. 
Therefore,  in  taking  an  account  of  the  conditions  of 
North  America  which  may  affect  the  welfare  of  civilized 
men,  we  must  attentively  consider  the  distribution  of 
its  mineral  resources. 

Although  North  America  has  been  known  to  Euro 
peans  for  more  than  four  hundred  years,  and  the  greater 
part  of  its  surface  has  only  been  visited  by  white  men 
during  the  present  century,  we  have  a  tolerably  good 
knowledge  of  its  mineral  wealth.  We  are,  it  is  true, 
ignorant  of  what  in  the  way  of  valuable  minerals  may 
lie  beneath  the  surface  of  a  large  part  of  British  Amer 
ica,  Alaska,  and  Greenland,  but  these  lands  are  so  inhos 
pitable  that  until  the  mineral  wealth  of  all  parts  of  the 
world  have  been  exhausted,  it  is  not  likely  that  much 
attention  will  be  given  to  them.  In  Mexico  and  in  the 
Cordilleras  northward  to  a  distance  of  some  hundred 


208       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

miles  beyond  the  Canadian  boundary  the  country  has 
been  very  assiduously  searched  for  mineral  stores,  and 
the  nature  of  that  wealth  is  tolerably  well  known.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  mountainous  district  of  the  Ap 
palachians  from  Newfoundland  to  Alabama.  As  a  whole, 
we  know  more  concerning  the  mineral  resources  of  North 
America  than  of  any  other  continent  except  Europe. 

For  convenience  we  may  divide  the  mineral  resources 
of  any  country  into  several  classes  of  materials.  As  the 
simplest,  we  have  the  stones,  which  may  serve  for  build 
ing  purposes  or  for  architectural  ornaments  of  various 
kinds.  Next,  we  have  the  deposits  of  metals,  such  as 
gold,  silver,  iron,  copper,  tin,  zinc,  etc.  Thirdly,  the  re 
sources  which  yield  heat  or  light,  such  as  coal,  petroleum, 
or  natural  gas.  Fourthly,  substances  which  may  afford 
mineral  manures,  or  materials  which  may  be  used  in  the 
refreshment  of  the  soils  exhausted  by  the  tax  which  till 
age  puts  upon  them.  Fifthly,  we  have  the  plastic  clays, 
which  serve  in  the  arts  of  the  potter,  in  making  vessels 
for  domestic  uses,  or  making  brick  and  many  other  less 
important  articles.  Last  of  all,  we  have  a  large  group  of 
important  substances  which  contribute  to  our  ordinary 
arts,  such  as  precious  stones,  the  earths  which  serve  in 
making  paint,  etc. 

The  distribution  of  these  several  classes  of  substances 
is  much  affected  by  the  history  of  the  rocks  in  which 
they  occur.  Thus  the  metals,  except  iron,  are  generally 
found  in  rocks  which  have  once  been  deeply  buried,  ex 
posed  to  the  heat  which  exists  in  the  depths  of  the  earth, 
and  subsequently  elevated  into  high  land,  where  the  beds 
which  once  covered  them  have  been  stripped  away  by 
the  action  of  torrents  and  glaciers.  Building  stone,  clay, 
and  fuel  materials  are  generally  found  in  their  best  con- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2CK) 

ditions,  for  use  where  the  rocks  have  not  been  very  much 
changed  and  where  they  have  been  preserved  from  the 
crumpling  and  other  breakings  brought  about  in  moun 
tain-building. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
underground  resources  which  are  of  value  to  man  to  a 
great  extent  owe  their  presence  in  veins,  or  beds,  to  the 
action  of  animals  or  plants  which  have  lived  in  former 
geological  ages.  This  effect  of  ancient  life  is  best  seen 
in  our  coal-deposits.  Falling  seeds,  leaves,  trunks, 
branches,  and  roots  of  trees  which  in  other  days  were 
accumulated  in  wet  places,  formed  extensive  bogs. 
When  woody  matter  falls  upon  tolerably  dry  ground  it 
entirely  decays,  and  the  carbon,  of  which  it  is  almost  alto 
gether  composed,  passes  by  decay  back  to  the  air.  Two 
atoms  of  oxygen  unite  with  each  atom  of  carbon,  and 
the  result  is  that  the  carbon  ceases  to  be  a  visible  sub 
stance,  and  becomes  converted  into  a  gas,  disappearing 
in  the  air,  in  the  course  of  time  to  be  reappropriated 
by  the  leaves  and  again  built  into  wooely  matter.  The 
water  of  a  swamp  prevents  this  complete  decay  and 
causes  the  carbon  to  remain  for  a  while  in  the  form  of 
peat  or  muck.  When  now  this  peaty  matter  is  de 
pressed  beneath  the  level  of  the  sea  and  sealed  in  by 
accumulations  of  sand,  clay,  or  limestone,  the  carbon 
gradually  takes  on  the  form  of  coal,  and  in  this  con 
dition  may  be  preserved  for  geological  ages.  It  is  thus 
easily  seen  that  when  we  burn  coal  and  make  avail  of 
its  light  and  heat,  we  are  served  by  the  plant  life  of 
ancient  days.  In  gathering  the  carbon  from  the  at 
mosphere  the  plants  do  their  work  by  virtue  of  the 
energy  imparted  to  them  through  the  sun's  rays.  They 
can  only  do  this  work  when  the  sun  is  shining  upon 


2IO       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

them.  Thus  the  vegetation  which  forms  the  coal-beds 
is  really  imprisoned  solar  energy  in  the  rocks.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  every  coal  fire  yields  us  the 
energy  of  the  sunshine  of  past  geological  ages,  and  that 
we  could  not  have  this  store  but  for  the  action  of  the 
plants. 

The  same  is  the  case  both  with  petroleum  and  rock 
gas>  —  natural  gas,  as  it  is  commonly  called.  These  sub 
stances  which  are  now  of  great  value  to  man,  are  mainly, 
if  not  altogether,  derived  from  the  decayed  animals  and 
plants  buried  on  old  sea-floors.  Imprisoned  in  the 
rocVs  these  fossil  remains  undergo  a  gradual  decom 
position,  and  as  a  result  of  this  chemical  change  we 
have  the  fluid  petroleum  and  the  chemical  compound 
known  as  natural  gas.  Where  the  Crocks  lie  in  their 
original  level  position,  the  beds  of  clay,  which  form 
layers  in  all  thick  series  of  bed-rocks,  confine  the  gases 
and  oil,  as  substances  may  be  held  in  a  bottle  by  means 
of  a  cork.  If  now  we  bore  through  these  layers  of  clay 
between  the  porous  sandstone  in  which  the  oil  and  gas 
have  been  accumulated,  these  substances  rush  forth 
with  great  force  and  may  be  gathered  for  use. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  where  the  rocks  have  been 
crumpled,  folded,  and  broken,  as  they  necessarily  are 
in  mountain-built  countries,  the  gas  and  oil  have  a 
chance  to  escape,  and  thus  it  naturally  comes  about 
that  the  fields  containing  these  substances  lie  in  parts 
of  the  continent  in  which  disturbances  of  the  strata 
have  not  taken  place.  In  a  somewhat  similar  way  coal- 
beds  are  best  preserved  in  regions  where  the  strata 
have  not  been  tossed  about  in  mountain-building  ;  for 
where  such  breakings  have  occurred,  the  beds  contain 
ing  coal,  which  are  always  of  a  rather  frail  nature,  break 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  211 

up  easily  under  the  action  of  frosts  and  streams  and  are 
apt  to  be  washed  away,  or  if  they  remain,  are  only  found 
in  small  patches  not  well  placed  for  the  miner's  use. 
Thus  it  comes  about  that  our  fuel  deposits  formed  by 
the  intervention  of  organic  life  are  best  preserved  in 
regions  of  little  disturbed  rocks. 

O 

In  a  less  definite  way  the  most  of  our  other  important 
minerals  owe  something  of  their  accumulation  in  profit 
able  deposits  to  the  action  of  living  beings  in  former 
geological  times.  The  history  of  this  relation  of  our 
metals  and  other  wealth-giving  substances  to  animals 
and  plants  is  somewhat  complicated,  but  of  such  a 
nature  that  we  should  take  pains  to  understand  it. 
This  history  is  in  brief  as  follows  :  the  rain-water 
when  it  falls  upon  the  lands  contains  no  mineral  sub 
stances,  but  is  ready  to  dissolve  a  great  variety  of 
materials ;  when  it  falls  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
it  commonly  passes  through  a  bed  of  decayed  vegeta 
tion,  the  familiar  mass  of  rotten  leaves  and  twigs  and 
trunks  which  we  find  beneath  our  feet  in  any  old  forest. 
As  before  noticed,  this  decaying  woody  matter  is,  by 
combining  with  the  oxygen  of  the  air,  constantly  pass 
ing  back  into  the  atmosphere  in  the  form  of  carbonic 
acid  gas,  or  carbon  dioxide,  as  it  is  sometimes  called. 
The  rain-water  has  a  singular  power  of  absorbing  this 
gas,  a  capacity  which  is  made  use  of  in  making  soda- 
water,  which  is  simply  water  charged  with  gas.  It 
therefore  absorbs  a  great  deal  of  this  carbon  dioxide 
on  its  way  downward  through  the  soil.  When  so 
charged  with  this  gas  it  acquires  a  vastly  greater  power 
of  dissolving  materials  than  it  had  before.  Thus,  where 
pure  rain-water  will  absorb  but  one  part  of  lime,  it  can 
take  up  fifty  parts  when  it  has  all  the  carbonic  acid  gas 
it  can  hold. 


212       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

So,  too,  with  all  the  other  substances,  including  most 
of  the  metals,  water,  which  can  hardly  dissolve  them  at 
all  in  the  pure  state,  can  take  them  in  solution  in  per 
ceptible  quantities  when  armed  with  this  peculiar  gas. 
On  its  way  downward  through  the  earth  and  through 
the  rocks,  which  it  penetrates,  it  dissolves  from  them 
a  great  deal  of  mineral  matter  of  very  varied  kinds. 
These  it  bears  to  the  sea.  When  the  sea-water  is 
evaporated,  all  these  substances  are  left  behind  in  the 
ocean,  constantly  increasing  the  dissolved  matter  which 
the  water  contains.  The  result  is  that  sea-water  has  in 
solution  greater  or  less  portions  of  all  the  substances, 
including  the  metals,  which  water  can  remove  by  the 
process  of  solution  from  the  rocks.  The  very  salt 
taste  of  the  sea  is  due  to  the  fact  that  certain  of  these 
substances,  common  salt  and  some  other  saline  mate 
rials,  are  so  large  in  quantity  that  they  affect  the  palate. 

If  the  rivers  continue  to  bring  these  mineral  sub 
stances  into  the  sea,  leaving  them  there  when  the 
waters  come  back  to  the  lands,  through  the  air,  the  sea 
would  in  time  become  so  charged  with  these  materials 
that  it  would  be,  like  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea  of 
Syria,  or  Salt  Lake  in  Utah,  unfit  for  the  existence 
of  marine  animals  or  plants.  The  fact  is,  however, 
that  these  living  beings  of  the  sea  are  constantly  re 
moving  these  dissolved  substances  from  the  water, 
building  them  into  their  bodies,  and  in  time  giving 
them  back  to  the  solid  earth  in  the  form  of  deposits 
accumulated  on  the  sea-floor.  It  is  probable  that  this 
withdrawal  of  mineral  matter  from  the  water  goes  on 
about  as  fast  as  it  is  introduced  into  the  ocean  from  the 
land.  But  all  forms  of  animals  and  plants  do  not  take 
different  substances  from  the  water  in  the  same  propor- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  213 

tion.  Some  kinds  of  sea-weed  appropriate  particular 
materials.  Certain  animals,  as,  for  instance,  the  creat 
ures  allied  to  crabs  and  lobsters,  take  out  phosphate  of 
lime ;  other  shell-bearing  creatures  remove  carbonate  of 
lime  from  the  waters.  The  result  is  that  where  a  deposit 
on  the  sea-bottom  is  composed,  as  is  often  the  case,  of 
the  remains  of  animals  and  plants  of  peculiar  kinds, 
which  have  grown  upon  the  ocean  floor  for  a  very  long 
time,  the  deposits  accumulated  by  the  death  and  decay 
of  the  creatures  contain  a  peculiarly  large  quantity  of 
one  or  another  of  the  forms  of  mineral  substances  ;  and 
so  it  happens  that  in  strata  we  may  have  beds,  or  many 
successive  layers,  which  are  rich  in  particular  mineral 
materials.  If  now  these  beds  become  deeply  buried,  the 
waters  they  contain  become  heated,  and  in  time  drain 
away  by  the  pressure  of  steam  and  other  gases,  which  im 
pel  them  upward  to  the  surface.  The  mineral  substances 
of  the  rocks  may  be  still  further  concentrated  into  veins, 
it  may  be  of  copper,  silver,  phosphate  of  lime,  etc. 

The  way  in  which  these  veins  are  formed  is  very 
simple.  As  long  as  the  waters  that  penetrate  them  are 
hot  and  under  great  pressure  they  are  constantly  dissolv 
ing  the  mineral  substances.  If,  when  they  have  taken 
up  a  great  charge  of  the  materials,  the  way  is  open  to 
the  passage  of  the  substances  to  the  surface  through  a 
crevice,  such  as  may  be  formed  by  a  break  in  the  rocks, 
they  move  up  through  the  opening.  As  they  rise 
towards  the  air  their  heat  is  constantly  diminishing 
because  they  come  into  cooler  rocks ;  the  pressure 
is  also  lowered,  and  so  the  mineral  matter  is  to  a 
certain  extent  deposited  in  a  cavity,  through  which 
the  water  is  passing,  and  so  forms  a  vein  accumulation 
which  the  miner  can  afterwards  explore  for  the  sub- 


214  NATURAL    PRODUCTS    AND    RESOURCES 

stances  he  seeks.  We  thus  see  how  it  is  that  veins  are 
most  likely  to  be  formed  in  mountain-built  rocks,  for 
there  the  strata  are  most  liable  to  the  breakage  which 
makes  the  cavities  in  which  the  veins  are  formed ;  and 
we  also  see  how  organic  life  serves  as  an  agent  in  the 
process  by  which  mineral  matter  is  concentrated  into  a 
shape  to  be  of  use  to  man. 

As  regards  the  under-earth  resources,  the  territory  of 
North  America  is  somewhat  naturally  divided  into  three 
great  fields,  corresponding  in  position  to  the  site  of  the 
three  most  considerable  systems  of  mountain  elevation. 
On  the  eastern  shore  we  have  the  Appalachian  moun 
tain  belt ;  on  the  western  face  of  the  continent,  the 
Cordilleran  district ;  and  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the 
third  important  field,  that  occupied  by  the  old  worn- 
down  Laurentian  Mountains.  In  addition  to  these  three 
principal  divisions,  there  are  a  number  of  subordinate 
areas,  also  grouped  about  and  within  the  lesser  mountain 
districts,  —  the  Adirondacks  of  northern  New  York,  the 
Ozarks  of  Missouri  and  Arkansas,  the  Black  Hills,  a 
geographic  dependency  of  the  Cordilleras,  and  some 
other  smaller  areas  hereafter  to  be  mentioned,  which 
are  not  distinctly  connected  with  any  mountain  systems. 

Beginning  our  survey  with  the  best-known  field,  that 
which  has  longest  served  the  interests  of  man  and  has 
contributed  the  most  to  the  economic  prosperity  of  the 
country,  the  Appalachian  district,  we  find  ourselves 
surrounded  by  a  region  of  varied  mineral  wealth.  As 
before  described,  the  Appalachian  Mountains  may  be 
taken  as  extending  from  northern  Newfoundland  to 
northern  Alabama,  and  from  the  central  parts  of  the 
Ohio  Valley  to  the  Atlantic  sea-shore  as  far  south  as 
Richmond,  Va.,  and  thence  in  the  interior  districts 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  215 

southward  to  central  South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  This 
mineral  field  occupies  somewhere  near  the  twentieth 
part  of  that  portion  of  the  area  of  the  continent  which 
by  its  climate  is  made  fit  for  the  uses  of  civilized  men. 

The  most  important  feature  in  the  Appalachian  min 
eral  district  is  found  in  the  very  large  proportion  of  car 
bonaceous  substances  which  occur  within  its  area.  No 
other  mountain  system  of  the  world  contains  within  its 
disturbed  district  or  in  the  table-lands  adjacent  to  its 
mountain-built  rocks,  so  large  an  amount  of  these  pre 
cious  materials  which  yield  light  and  heat  and  the  power 
which  drives  steam-engines,  for  the  uses  of  man.  These 
carbonaceous  materials  are,  as  before  noted,  divided  into 
three  groups.  First  and  most  important  are  the  'depos 
its  of  coal.  In  general,  the  coal-beds  of  the  Appalachian 
district  lie  either  to  the  east  or  west  of  the  principal 
axes  of  that  system,  and  this  for  the  reason  that  the 
central  dominant  part  of  the  chain  is  composed  of  rocks 
which  were  formed  and  uplifted  in  a  mountainous  shape 
before  the  Carboniferous  age,  or  that  stage  in  the 
earth's  history  when  the  most  abundant  deposits  of  this 
nature  were  produced.  There  are  thus  two  areas  of 
coal-fields  in  this  part  of  the  continent,  the  western  field 
of  largest  area  containing  more  than  nine-tenths  of  all 
the  coal  in  the  eastern  part  of  North  America,  and  the 
eastern,  or  seaboard,  basins,  which  hold  a  smaller 
amount  of  this  material. 

The  western  field  occupies  an  almost  continuous  area 
extending  from  northern  Pennsylvania  southward  to 
central  Alabama.  Outlying  parts  of  the  field  form 
ing  considerable  areas  contain  good  coal,  —  those  of 
western  Kentucky,  Illinois,  and  Indiana  ;  but  the  prin 
cipal  mass  of  the  valuable  coal-areas  of  the  Appalachians 


2l6       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

lies  in  the  district  immediately  adjacent  to,  and  partly 
included  within,  the  Alleghany  Mountains.  Here  and 
there,  by  the  mountain  folding  and  the  irregular  wear 
ing  away  of  the  rocks  which  has  resulted  from  their 
folded  condition,  many  small  detached  masses  of  coal 
have  been  formed,  separated  by  slight  intervals  from 
the  main  field ;  but  as  a  whole  the  coals  lying  to  the 
west  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  or  principal  axis  of  the  Appa 
lachians,  lie  in  a  great  connected  area.  To  the  east 
of  the  Appalachians  the  coal-fields  have  been,  to  a 
great  extent,  worn  away  by  the  action  of  the  sea-waves, 
which,  with  the  changes  of  level  of  the  continent  have 
acted  with  great  force  all  along  the  Atlantic  border. 
In  place  of  the  continuous  belt  of  coal-bearing  rocks, 
which  lies  on  the  western  side  of  the  Appalachians, 
we  have  on  the  east  half  a  dozen  detached  basins, 
some  of  which  were  formed,  not  during  the  Carbo 
niferous  age,  but  in  the  ages  immediately  following 
upon  it. 

Beginning  with  the  northern  portion  of  the  Appa 
lachian  basin,  we  observe  the  existence  of  some  deposits 
of  coal  in  Newfoundland.  So  far  none  of  these  coal- 
bearing  strata  of  this  remote  island  have  been  worked, 
and  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  they  will  prove  of 
much  value.  Next  south,  in  Nova  Scotia  and  Cape 
Breton,  there  are  some  small  areas  which  contain  good 
coal.  It  is  expensive  to  work  these  deposits,  for  the 
reason  that  the  beds  have  been  much  disturbed  by 
mountain-building,  and  their  tilted  positions  make  it 
difficult  for  miners  to  win  the  material.  The  most 
important  of  these  mines  are  situated  in  Cape  Breton, 
where  the  coal  is  followed  in  dipping  strata  beneath 
the  sea-level,  and  in  places  J^elow  the  floor  of  the 
ocean. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

From  Nova  Scotia  southward  to  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island,  the  whole  of  the  deposits  containing 
coal  have  either  been  stripped  away  by  the  action  of 
the  sea  and  that  of  glacial  ice  or  lie  buried  beneath 
the  level  of  the  ocean.  In  the  region  about  Narragan- 
sett  Bay,  partly  within  Rhode  Island  and  partly  in 
Massachusetts,  we  have  the  next  more  southern  field  of 
coal-bearing  rocks.  In  this  interesting  basin  the  coal, 
unlike  that  of  Nova  Scotia,  which  is  of  an  ordinary 
soft  or  bituminous  character,  is  a  very  hard  anthracite, 
so  much  changed,  indeed,  from  its  original  nature  that 
it  cannot  be  burned  in  an  open  fire  or  in  a  profitable 
way  in  making  steam ;  therefore,  although  the  amount 
of  coal  in  this  basin  is  large,  it  has  not  proved  of 
much  service  in  the  arts.  In  this  field  the  beds  con 
taining  the  coal  are  exceedingly  crumpled  and  twisted 
by  mountain-building  action.  The  region  has  evidently 
been  at  one  time  the  seat  of  tolerably  high  mountains, 
though  at  present,  by  the  long-continued  action  of 
river  glaciers  and  of  the  sea  at  higher  levels  than  it  now 
occupies,  the  surface  has  been  planed  down  to  a  nearly 
level  form. 

From  Rhode  Island  southward  to  southern  Virginia 
there  are  no  traces  of  coal  occurring  in  economic  quan 
tities.  In  the  region  about  Richmond,  Va.,  there 
is  a  small  basin  containing  an  abundance  of  coals 
which  were  formed  during  the  age  commonly  known 
as  the  Trias,  which  followed  almost  immediately  after 
the  great  coal-making  time.  This  Richmond  basin, 
like  that  of  Rhode  Island,  has  been  very  much  dis 
turbed  by  mountain-building  forces,  and  was  probably 
at  one  time  the  seat  of  lofty  elevations ;  but  it  too  has 
been  planed  down  by  the  sea  until  its  nearly  level 


2l8       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

surface  is  only  a  few  feet  above  the  present  level  of 
the  ocean.  These  coals  of  the  Virginian  district,  unlike 
those  of  Rhode  Island,  are  extremely  inflammable  and 
yield  a  large  amount  of  gas  even  before  they  are 
burned :  the  quantity  of  this  gas,  which  when  mixed 
with  atmospheric  air  readily  explodes,  causes  the  mines 
to  be  of  a  very  fiery  character,  liable  to  great  explosions 
of  what  the  miners  term  fire-damp.  On  this  account, 
and  also  because  the  beds  lie  in  very  inconvenient  posi 
tions  owing  to  the  mountain-building  to  which  they 
have  been  subjected,  this  basin  is  of  no  great  economic 
value.  Yet  further  south  and  further  inland  in  North 
Carolina  there  are  two  or  three  small  fields  of  similar 
coal  which  have  been  somewhat  mined  at  various  times, 
but  have  proved  essentially  valueless  because  of  the 
irregularity  of  the  strata  and  the  quantity  of  gas  which 
exudes  from  the  deposits. 

The  coal-fields  on  the  western  side  of  the  Blue  Ridge, 
extending  from  the  northern  part  of  Pennsylvania  to 
central  Alabama,  are  on  the  whole  not  only  more  con 
tinuous  than  those  of  the  Atlantic  shore,  but  contain 
more  beds  of  useful  fuel.  Including  the  fields  of 
southern  Michigan  and  those  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  and 
Kentucky,  which  were  once  united  with  the  main  field, 
but  have  been  separated  from  it  by  the  wearing  action 
of  rivers  and  frost,  this  western  coal-field  is  the  largest, 
richest,  and  on  the  whole  the  most  extensive  of  any 
deposit  known  or  likely  to  be  discovered  in  the  world, 
unless  it  should  be  the- great  coal-field  of  China,  the 
character  of  which  is  not  yet  well  known.  These 
several  parts  of  the  Appalachian  coal-fields  contain  a 
total  area  of  near  100,000  square  miles  of  workable  beds. 
This  area  is  at  least  several  times  as  extensive  as  that 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2IQ 

occupied  by  the  coal-fields  of  Great  Britain.  Both 
by  their  position  and  their  extent,  the  coal-bearing- 
rocks  of  the  Appalachian  district  are  better  suited  to 
the  needs  of  man  than  those  of  any  other  country. 
They  are  so  placed  as  to  be  near  to  the  most  fertile 
lands  of  the  continent  and  to  the  sea-shore.  In 
the  Mississippi  Valley  the  great  streams  of  that  river 
system  provide  the*  miner  with  cheap  ways  by  which  he 
may  take  the  fuel  to  market. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  coal  in  the  Appalachian 
district  is  of  the  soft  variety.  That  is,  the  coal  burns 
with  a  smoky  flame,  for  the  reason  that  it  yields  a  great 
deal  of  matter  which  when  heated  passes  into  the  state 
of  gas.  In  central  Pennsylvania  there  are  a  number  of 
small  fields  originally  connected  with  the  west  Appa 
lachian  coal-area,  but  now  divided  from  that  area  and 
from  each  other  by  the  mountain  folds  in  which  anthra 
cite  or  hard  coals  are  found.  Anthracite  is  that  form 
of  coal  in  which  the  material  burns  with  little  or  no 
flame,  for  the  reason  that  it  yields  no  gas.  Although 
these  little  basins  have  in  all  not  more  than  five  hun 
dred  square  miles,  the  coal  usually  occurs  in  very  thick 
beds,  and  on  account  of  its  superior  heating  powers  is 
of  great  value.  The  Rhode  Island  coals  are  also  anthra 
cite,  but  as  before  remarked  are  too  hard  for  use,  hav 
ing  been  changed,  since  they  were  buried,  so  far  from 
their  original  character  that  they  are  only  of  value  for 
particular  uses,  such  as  smelting  ores.  There  are  no 
other  known  localities  of  anthracite  occurring  in  quanti 
ties  sufficient  to  have  value  in  the  Appalachian  district. 

The  stores  of  petroleum  and  natural  gas  contained  in 
the  Appalachian  district  are  altogether  limited  to  the 
region  west  of  the  Alleghany  division  of  that  system. 


220  NATURAL    PRODUCTS    AND    RESOURCES 

They  occupy  the  field  of  table-lands  which  lie  on  the 
eastern  flank  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  the  neighboring 
portions  of  the  basin  of  the  Great  Lakes.  They  are  in 
deed  beyond  the  true  boundaries  of  the  district,  which 
has  been  dislocated  by  the  Appalachian  mountain-build 
ing  movements,  but  the  most  of  this  oil  and  gas  field  is 
within  the  region  which  has  been  somewhat  elevated  by 
the  same  forces  which  have  crumpled  the  beds  further 
to  the  east.  It  is  probable  that  the  same  oil  and  gas 
found  in  these  horizontal  rocks  originally  occurred  in  the 
mountain-built  rocks  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  neigh 
boring  districts,  but  the  breaking  of  the  rocks  which  was 
brought  about  by  the  mountain-building  gave  the  gas 
an  opportunity  to  escape,  and  it  forced  along  with  it  the 
oil,  leaving  the  strata  without  either  material. 

The  oil  and  gas  of  the  region  west  of  the  Mississippi 
is  now  found  in  patches  scattered  over  the  region  from 
near  the  Mississippi  to  the  foot  of  the  mountains  on  the 
west.  The  fact  that  these  substances  are  found  only  in 
particular  localities  is  readily  explained  when  we  under 
stand  the  conditions  of  their  formation  and  preservation. 
To  form  oil  and  gas,  which  are  generally  associated  to 
gether,  it  was  necessary  for  a  quantity  of  the  remains  of 
animals  and  plants  to  accumulate  in  strata.  By  their 
gradual  decay  these  remains  produced  those  valuable 
substances,  but  it  was  required  for  their  preservation  in 
the  strata  that  there  should  be  porous  rocks  such  as 
coarse  sandstones,  in  the  crevices  of  which,  the  spaces 
between  the  grains,  oil  and  gas  could  be  stored.  It  was 
also  necessary  that  in  the  bed  above  where  the  decom 
position  took  place  there  should  be  dense  layers  of  a 
clayey  sort  serving  to  confine  the  gas  and  prevent  it  escap 
ing  to  the  surface.  It  was  furthermore  important  that  no 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  221 

breaks  should  exist  in  these  overlying  dense  layers,  lest 
the  gas  should  go  out,  driving  the  oil  along  with  it,  and 
escape  to  the  air. 

It  is  easily  seen  that  these  conditions  necessary  for 
the  formation  and  storage  of  petroleum  are  not  likely 
to  occur  everywhere  over  a  large  district ;  and  so  we 
have  only  here  and  there  conditions  which  permit  us  to 
obtain  oil  or  gas  by  boring  through  the  overlying  strata 
to  the  bed  in  which  it  is  stored.  When  thus  obtained, 
we  find  the  gas  is  always  under  great  pressure.  At 
times  this  amounts  to  as  much  as  one  thousand  pounds 
to  the  inch,  or  from  five  to  ten  times  the  pressure  of 
steam  in  an  ordinary  engine  boiler.  The  gas  rushes 
forth  with  great  energy  ;  where  oil  was  formed  with  it 
this  oil  is  driven  out  with  great  violence  and  may  be 
gathered  for  the  market.  In  other  cases  there  is  no  oil 
found,  or  the  quantity  is  so  small  that  it  is  not  profitable, 
though  the  gas  may  be  abundant  :  the  supply  is  often 
conveyed  in  pipes  to  distant  points  and  used  for  a  great 
variety  of  purposes. 

The  petroleum,  or  rock  oil,  from  these  wells  of  the 
Ohio  Valley  now  affords  the  principal  supply  of  kerosene 
used  in  the  world  :  the  only  other  region  with  anything 
like  so  great  a  product  is  that  on  the  shores  of  the  Cas 
pian  Sea,  about  the  town  of  Baiku,  where  the  conditions 
of  its  natural  storage  appear  to  be  essentially  like  those 
of  the  American  district.  Along  with  the  rock  oil  con 
tained  in  the  fluid  as  it  comes  out  of  the  ground  is  found 
a  great  variety  of  valuable  substances.  When  in  its 
natural  state  this  oil  is  a  black  fluid.  By  various  pro 
cesses  there  is  separated  from  it  paraffine,  which  is 
used  for  making  wax-like  candles  ;  very  inflammable  oils 
known  as  naphthas,  which  though  not  fit  for  lamps  may 


222  NATURAL    PRODUCTS    AND   RESOURCES 

be  used  for  making  gas  and  in  various  other  arts  ;  a 
great  variety  of  dyes  known  as  aniline  colors  ;  certain 
peculiar  oils,  which  serve  for  lubricating  machinery ; 
and  a  great  range  of  other  less  important  products. 
Although  the  Caspian  field  promises  in  the  end  to 
afford  a  supply  of  petroleum  possibly  as  great  as  that 
obtained  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  no  other  region  in  the 
world  is  known  to  afford  such  quantities  of  rock  gas 
as  are  obtained  in  the  last-named  district. 

Among  the  ores  of  the  metals  found  in  the  Appa 
lachian  district  we  must  give  the  first  place  to  those  of 
iron.  Ores  of  this  nature  — that  is,  various  combinations 
of  iron  with  oxygen  —  abound  throughout  the  Appa 
lachian  region.  Beginning  on  the  north,  we  find  these 
ores  abundant  in  Newfoundland,  where,  on  account  of 
the  inaccessibility  of  the  island,  they  have  not  been 
much  studied.  They  are  also  plentiful  in  Nova  Scotia 
and  Cape  Breton.  New  England  has  no  noteworthy 
iron  ores  except  in  the  region  bordering  on  New  York 
state,  where  there  are  some  considerable  deposits.  In 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania  iron  ores  occur  in  greater 
plenty,  but  it  is  in  Virginia,  western  North  Carolina, 
eastern  Tennessee,  northern  Georgia  and  Alabama,  and 
eastern  Kentucky  that  we  find  the  great  iron  district 
of  the  Appalachian  mountain  system. 

In  all  this  southern  region  the  iron  ores  are  princi 
pally  found  in  beds,  which  were  originally  composed  of 
limestone,  afterward  converted  into  iron  ore  in  a  curious 
and  interesting  way.  Where  the  bed  of  limestone  has 
overlying  it  a  thick  mass  of  sandstone,  perhaps  hundreds 
of  feet  in  depth,  and  where  the  rain-water  is  free  to 
creep  down  through  the  soils  to  thesv  rocks,  the  water 
first  takes  up  in  the  soil,  in  the  manner  before  described, 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  22$ 

a  certain  amount  of  carbonic  acid  gas.  The  presence 
of  this  gas  in  the  water  enables  the  fluid  to  dissolve  the 
iron  oxide  with  which  it  comes  in  contact.  There  is 
generally  a  good  deal  of  iron  in  sandstone  rocks,  so 
when  it  comes  to  the  layer  of  lime  the  water  has  a  good 
deal  of  that  metal  in  solution.  It  then  abandons  the 
iron,  taking  lime  in  its  place  ;  and  so  the  oxide  of  the 
metal  is  left  where  the  limestone  lay  before.  Gradu 
ally  in  this  manner  all  the  lime  goes  away,  and  in  its 
place  we  have  left  a  carbonate  of  iron.  From  this  ore, 
more  or  less  changed  by  the  action  of  the  water,  nearly 
all  the  iron  of  the  Southern  states  is  made. 

A  peculiar  advantage  possessed  by  these  irons  of  the 
southern  Appalachian  district  consists  in  the  fact  that 
good  coal  lies  immediately  near  the  beds,  and  so  the 
material  for  smelting  the  ore  is  easily  obtained.  So, 
too,  limestone,  which  it  is  necessary  to  use  along  with 
the  iron  ore  and  the  fuel  to  make  the  melted  matter 
flow  easily,  abounds  in  this  district.  The  result  of 
these  advantages  is  that  in  the  states  above  named 
the  manufacture  of  iron  is  coming  to  be  a  very  exten 
sive  industry. 

The  Appalachian  district,  though  it  contains  a  certain 
amount  of  other  metals,  is  so  far  surpassed  in  these  re 
sources  by  other  parts  of  the  continent,  that  they  have 
relatively  little  value.  A  considerable  amount  of  gold 
was  in  former  days  produced  in  Virginia  and  the  Caro- 
linas  and  Georgia  ;  but  it  has  proved  impossible  to  work 
these  mines  with  free  labor  with  the  same  profit  which 
was  obtained  when  slaves  could  be  used.  In  Nova 
Scotia  a  few  gold  mines  are  profitably  worked,  but  the 
precious  metals  of  the  Appalachian  district  are  on  the 
whole  of  small  importance.  Some  copper  ores  have 


224       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

been  mined  in  Newfoundland,  in  Vermont,  New  Jersey, 
North  Carolina,  and  East  Tennessee,  but  the  product  has 
not  been  very  great.  Ores  of  manganese,  which  are  used 
in  making  certain  kinds  of  steel  and  for  producing  oxygen 
needed  in  bleaching  processes,  are  produced  in  Virginia. 
Iron  pyrite,  a  combination  of  iron  and  sulphur,  occurs  in 
considerable  abundance  in  Massachusetts,  New  Hamp 
shire,  and  Virginia.  It  is  considerably  mined,  and  the 
ore  is  used  in  making  sulphuric  acid.  Zinc  ores  abound 
in  New  Jersey,  southwestern  Virginia,  and  eastern  Ten 
nessee,  but  at  present  they  are  not  much  mined. 

The  building  stones  and  clays  of  the  Appalachian 
region  are  valuable.  On  the  coast  of  New  England  the 
granites  are  very  much  quarried.  Vermont,  Georgia,  and 
eastern  Tennessee  afford  a  great  deal  of  marble,  which 
although  not  fit  for  statuary  purposes,  is  excellent  for 
building.  The  sandstones  of  New  Jersey  and  the  Con 
necticut  Valley,  which  come  from  the  rocks  of  Triassic 
age,  are  extensively,  though  locally,  used  for  building 
purposes.  From  Maine  to  Georgia,  in  the  central  por 
tions  of  the  Appalachian  district,  slates  fit  for  roofrng  and 
other  purposes,  are  extensively  quarried.  Clays  from 
the  central  portion  of  the  Appalachian  district  south  of 
New  York  are  largely  dug  for  pottery  purposes.  The 
little  changed  rocks  on  the  western  flank  of  the  Appa 
lachians  yield  at  many  places  excellent  water  cements. 
On  the  Atlantic  coast  near  Charleston,  S.C.,  and  in 
western  Florida,  in  a  field  somewhat  remote  from  the 
Appalachian  Mountains,  there  are  extensive  deposits  of 
lime  phosphate  derived  from  the  remains  of  ancient  ani 
mals  which  used  these  substances  in  forming  their  skele 
tons.  These  phosphates  are  dug  in  large  quantities  and 
utilized,  when  mixed  with  other  materials,  as  artificial 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  225 

manures  for  cotton  and  other  crops.  Less  valuable  de 
posits  of  a  similar  kind  are  found  at  a  number  of  points  in 
North  Carolina,  and  recent  discoveries  of  the  same  sub 
stance  have  been  made  in  western  Florida.  These 
latter,  though  as  yet  but  partly  explored,  promise  to  be 
of  great  value. 

The  mineral  resources  of  the  Laurentian  district  are 
not  well  known.  All  that  part  of  it  from  which  the 
waters  flow  towards  Hudson  Bay  is  hardly  yet  explored 
by  travellers.  It  is  only  the  portion  which  drains  into 
the  St.  Lawrence  which  has  begun  to  be  examined. 
This  region  is  remarkable  for  the  large  quantities  of 
iron,  copper,  and  phosphate  of  lime  which  it  contains. 
The  greater  part  of  the  deposits  of  iron  and  copper  yet 
discovered  lies  on  the  southern  shore  of  Lake  Superior, 
in  what  is  called  the  upper  or  northern  peninsula  of  the 
state  of  Michigan.  In  this  region  the  copper  is  found 
in  the  metallic  state,  a  form  in  which  it  seldom  occurs 
in  any  quantity  in  other  countries.  So  large  is  the  sup 
ply  obtained  from  the  mines  in  this  district  that  it  con 
tributes  to  commerce  more  of  that  metal  than  any  other 
equal  area  in  the  world.  In  this  region  also  there  are 
very  extensive  deposits  of  iron,  of  which  the  most  val 
uable  occur  in  the  form  of  magnetite,  a  dense  black  ore 
which  has  the  property  of  attracting  the  magnet.  This 
region  is  now  the  seat  of  what  is  perhaps  the  largest 
production  of  iron  ore  obtained  in  any  equally  extensive 
area  in  the  world.  The  ore  is  very  rich,  containing  from 
sixty  to  seventy  per  cent,  of  iron,  and  on  this  account 
can  be  profitably  transported  to  great  distances.  The 
larger  part  of  it  is  taken  to  the  furnaces  of  Pennsylvania 
and  Ohio  and  Illinois,  where  it  is  used  in  making  steel. 

Phosphate  deposits,    which  are  principally  used  for 


226      NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

making  artificial  manures,  abundantly  occur  north  of 
the  shore  of  Lake  Ontario.  The  products  of  these 
mines  are  shipped  to  Europe.  There  are  also  in  the 
region  north  of  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Superior  some 
silver  deposits,  but  this  region  has  not  produced  much 
of  this  precious  metal.  The  rocks  of  all  this  district 
were  formed  long  before  the  coal-bearing  rocks  began 
to  be  deposited,  and  therefore  they  contain  none  of 
this  valuable  material.  Immediately  north  of  Lake 
Erie  there  is  a  small  district  which  has  yielded  some 
petroleum,  but  only  in  unimportant  quantities.  As  a 
whole  the  Laurentian  district  appears  to  contain  much 
less  mineral  wealth  than  that  which  is  found  in  the 
region  to  the  southward. 

The  Adirondack  district,  immediately  around  the 
foot  of  the  mountains  of  that  name,  affords  a  good 
deal  of  iron  of  magnetic  character,  but  these  stores 
have  proved  of  less  importance  since  the  discovery  of 
the  great  iron  ore  deposits  in  northern  Michigan.  This 
region  once  yielded  some  lead,  but  the  mines  have 
become  exhausted. 

The  central  portion  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  though 
almost  destitute  of  mountains,  has  sorrfe  interesting 
mineral  fields.  Thus  on  the  line  between  Illinois  and 
Iowa  there  is  a  district  which  formerly  contributed  a 
great  deal  of  lead  to  the  commerce  of  the  world, 
though  it  no  longer  is  advantageous  to  work  the  mines. 
In  southeastern  Missouri  and  southeastern  Kansas  there 
is  an  interesting  field  where  extensive  deposits  of  lead 
and  zinc  occur,  which  have  long  been  profitably  worked. 
Yet  further  south,  in  the  region  about  the  Ozark 
Mountains  of  Arkansas,  there  are  extensive  deposits 
of  the  valuable  ores  of  manganese. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  22/ 

In  the  Cordilleran  district,  from  the  foot  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  west  to  the  Pacific,  the  whole  of  the 
continent  is  mountain  built,  and  thus  offers  a  favorable 
seat  for  the  formation  and  disclosure  of  mineral 
deposits  ;  except  as  regards  fuel  materials  this  region 
probably  contains  a  larger  store  of  mineral  wealth  than 
any  other  equally  extensive  area  in  the  world.  The 
variety  in  the  substances  afforded  from  this  district 
is  also  greater  than  in  any  other  land.  Beginning  with 
the  fuel  resources,  we  note  that  in  this  field  there  are 
few  coals  of  the  same  geological  age  as  those  on  the 
eastern  part  of  the  continent.  In  general,  the  eastern 
coals  were  formed  in  the  so-called  Carboniferous  period, 
while  the  Cordilleran  coals  were  laid  down  in  later 
stages  of  the  earth's  history.  The  deposits  of  rock 
oil  and  gas  are  also  rare,  and  though  as  yet  little  known, 
apparently  have  no  great  promise.  None  of  the  coal 
fields  are  of  as  great  area  as  those  of  the  Appalachian 
region,  but  they  are  fortunately  scattered  through  the 
country,  occurring  in  Colorado,  Wyoming,  California, 
in  Oregon,  and  in  Washington.  The  deposits  of 
petroleum  known  to  be  of  value  are  limited  to  the 
central  portion  of  California.  Although  these  stores 
of  fuel  are  usually  in  quality  much  inferior  to  those 
which  occur  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  United  States, 
they  have,  owing  to  their  position,  a  great  economic 
importance.  The  whole  of  the  Cordilleran  district 
has  but  a  scanty  supply  of  wood.  The  mines  and  smelt 
ing  works  where  ores  are  treated  demand  a  great  deal 
of  fuel,  which  but  for  these  small  basins  of  rather  infe 
rior  coal  would  have  to  be  brought  altogether  from  the 
eastern  part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  iron  ores  of  the  Cordilleran  district  are  abundant 


228       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

and  of  very  good  quality.  They  have  as  yet  been  little 
used,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  far  from  great  mar 
kets  and  generally  remote  from  fuel  suitable  for  use 
in  furnaces.  The  most  important  mineral  resources 
of  this  district  are  found  in  the  ores  containing  gold, 
silver,  and  copper.  In  no  other  region  are  these  metals, 
especially  the  first  two  named,  found  in  quantities  suf 
ficient  to  justify  mining  over  so  large  a  field.  California 
was  the  first  part  of  North  America  to  produce  any 
considerable  quantities  of  gold.  From  1848  until  the 
present  date  over  one  thousand  millions  of  dollars'  worth 
of  that  metal  have  been  produced  within  the  limits  of 
this  state.  A  very  large  quantity  of  gold  and  a  nearly 
equal  value  of  silver  have  been  obtained  from  the  great 
vein  in  Nevada  known  as  the  Comstock  lode,  one  of  the 
largest  known  deposits  of  precious  metals  in  the  world. 
Perhaps  the  most  extensive  system  of  mines  in  the 
world  are  in  operation  in  this  deposit.  The  mines  of 
the  Comstock  lode  are  remarkable  not  only  for  their 
extent  but  for  the  high  temperature  which  is  encoun 
tered.  The  miners  not  infrequently  work  in  a  heat  of 
120°  F.,  at  the  depth  of  not  more  than  two  thousand 
feet  below  the  surface.  Profitable  gold  mines  are  also 
worked  at  various  points  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the 
Cordilleras  as  far  north  as  southern  Alaska. 

The  gold  of  this  Cordilleran  district  was  at  first  found 
in  deposits  of  gravel,  formed  along  the  path  of  ancient 
rivers.  Wherever  the  gold  occurs  in  veins,  the  process 
of  downwearing,  to  which  the  country  is  subjected  by 
breaking  up  the  rock,  releases  the  gold  from  its  matrix  : 
in  the  form  of  little  pellets  it  starts  on  its  journey  to 
the  sea.  Being  very  heavy,  it  finds  lodgement  among 
the  pebbles  of  the  stream  bed  or  in  crannies  of  the  rock 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  229 

over  which  the  water  flows.  Unlike  the  other  metals, 
nearly  all  of  which  save  platinum  combine  with  oxy 
gen,  forming  more  or  less  soluble  combinations,  and  are 
thus  readily  borne  away  by  the  streams,  gold,  not  being 
oxidizable,  remains  uncorroded  in  the  stream  beds,  and 
does  not  go  away  to  the  sea  until  it  has  been  pounded 
into  very  small  bits  by  the  action  of  stones  driven  over 
its  surface  by  the  torrents.  In  many  parts  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  particularly  in  Colorado  and  Cali 
fornia,  the  ordinary  rivers,  or  those  which  flow  from 
beneath  ancient  glaciers,  accumulated  vast  amounts  of 
this  gravel  containing  gold.  In  many  cases  the  rivers 
have  in  recent  times  abandoned  their  old  stream  beds 
and  left  these  gravels  lying  high  above  their  present 
channels.  Sometimes  the  deposits  of  sand,  clay,  and 
gravel,  containing  the  precious  metal,  are  one  or  two 
hundred  feet  thick,  the  richest  portion  of  the  gold-bear 
ing  material  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  deposit  near  the 
bed-rock. 

Where  the  auriferous  gravel  is  thin  and  the  gold 
relatively  large  in  quantity,  the  miner  wins  the  precious 
metal  from  the  mixture  by  simple  means.  The  easiest 
way  is  to  take  up  the  gravel  and  wash  the  gold  from  it 
in  a  large  round-bottomed  pan,  by  stirring  the  gravel 
with  water,  which  causes  the  heavy  gold  to  settle  on  the 
bottom ;  gradually  removing  the  pebbles,  the  miner 
finally  obtains  a  hand  full  of  fine  sand,  composed  in  the 
main  of  magnetic  iron,  but  containing  the  most  of  the 
gold  which  was  originally  held  in  the  rejected  gravel. 
The  more  effective  way  is  to  wash  the  gold  in  a  trough 
with  little  partitions  across  its  bottom,  and  an  inclined 
bed  ;  the  gold-bearing  material  is  put  in  at  the  upper  end, 
and  a  stream  of  water  is  allowed  to  flow  through  the 


23O       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES 

trough,  the  whole  mass  being  moved  on  rockers  in  the 
fashion  of  an  old-time  cradle.  In  this  way 'the  gold  is 
caught  just  above  the  bars  of  wood.  The  process  is 
aided  by  pouring  a  little  quicksilver  from  time  to  time 
into  the  trough  ;  the  quicksilver  combines  with  the  gold 
and  helps  to  hold  it  in  position  as  the  sand  and  gravel 
pass  by.  A  still  more  effective  system  of  winning  gold 
from  detritus  is  to  have,  instead  of  the  cradle,  a  long 
sluice-way  of  planks,  three  or  four  feet  wide,  and  per 
haps  a  thousand  feet  long,  with  very  many  little  parti 
tions  of  wood,  which  rise  a  few  inches  above  the  bottom. 
A  stream  of  water  is  made  to  course  through  this  chan 
nel,  and  the  gold-bearing  gravel  is  dumped  into  it. 

Where  the  gravel  is  very  thick,  it  often  happens  that 
the  gold  does  not  amount  to  more  than  a  few  cents  to 
the  cubic  yard  of  the  mass,  and  none  of  the  simpler 
systems  are  applicable.  The  miner  then  seeks  to  bring 
a  stream  of  water  from  a  distance  in  such  a  manner 
that  at  his  works  it  may  have  a  head  of  two  hundred 
feet  or  more,  so  arranged  that  he  may  lead  the  water 
down  to  the  workings  by  means  of  pipes.  He  then 
allows  this  water  to  flow  from  a  nozzle  like  that  which 
sends  a  stream  from  a  fire  engine,  only  the  stream 
commonly  has  a  diameter  of  from  four  to  six  inches  or 
more,  and  flies  out  with  several  times  the  force  which 
it  does  from  our  fire  apparatus.  Directing  this  stream 
against  the  steep  bank  of  gravel,  he  washes  the  whole 
mass  of  debris  into  the  sluice-way.  The  stream  is  often 
strong  enough  to  move  bowlders  a  foot  or  two  in 
diameter  and  to  take  them  swiftly  through  the  sluice. 
This  was  at  one  time  a  common  method  of  mining  the 
gold  deposits.  It  has  been  found,  however,  that  the 
large  amount  of  debris  thus  Carried  into  the  streams 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  231 

has  not  been  taken  away  to  the  sea,  but  encumbers 
the  paths  of  the  rivers,  causing  their  bottoms  to  rise  to 
such  an  extent  that  they  flow  out  over  the  tillable 
lands,  covering  them  with  masses  of  sterile  sand  and 
gravel.  In  consequence  of  this  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  stop,  by  law,  mining  by  this  hydraulic 
method. 

The  silver  deposits  of  the  Cordilleran  district  of  North 
America  are  widely  distributed  over  the  southern  and 
western  portions  of  the  mountainous  belt,  from  southern 
Mexico  to  the  northern  part  of  the  United  States.  Un 
like  the  gold,  which  usually  occurs  in  pure  form,  silver  is 
Almost  invariably  found  in  the  form  of  oxides  and  much 
of  it  in  combination  with  the  ores  of  other  metals.  The 
largest  production  of  silver  has  been  from  the  Comstock 
lode,  where  it  is  found  associated  with  gold,  and  in  the 
district  of  Eureka,  Nev.,  and  that  of  Leadville,  Col.  Next 
after  the  silver  country  of  South  America,  in  the  Andes 
in  and  about  Peru,  these  North  American  localities  have 
produced  more  of  this  metal  than  any  other  mines  in  the 
world. 

The  copper  deposits  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  are  in 
the  main  limited  to  the  districts  of  Nevada  and  Montana ; 
while  about  Lake  Superior  the  greater  part  of  the  cop 
per  is  found  in  the  metallic  form,  in  these  Cordilleran 
districts,  though  the  supply  is  large,  it  occurs  in  associa 
tion  with  other  substances,  and  not  in  the  metallic  form. 
Consequently  it  is  generally  more  costly  to  produce  the 
metal  than  in  the  mines  of  northern  Michigan. 

The  Cordilleran  district  also  affords  a  large  number  of 
other  valuable  metals  and  non-metallic  earth  products. 
Iron,  manganese,  and  lead  abound.  A  little  of  the  iron 
is  worked  in  Colorado,  and  the  lead  is  extensively  pro- 


232       NATURAL  PRODUCTS  AND  RESOURCES. 

duced  from  the  silver  mines,  where  it  occurs  in  the  ores 
from  which  the  silver  is  extracted.  Tin  occurs,  but  prob 
ably  not  in  sufficient  quantities  to  be  profitably  worked. 

This  region  abounds  in  various  classes  of  substances, 
such  as  salt  and  soda,  which  have  been  produced  by  the 
long-continued  evaporation  of  lake  waters.  Their  plenty 
in  this  part  of  the  world  is  due  to  the  interesting  fact 
that  in  very  recent  geological  times  the  amount  of  rain 
fall  has  greatly  diminished.  There  were  numerous  large 
lakes  which  of  old  discharged  by  rivers  to  the  sea,  but 
which  are  now  represented  by  shrunken  salt-water  basins 
such  as  the  Salt  Lake  of  Utah,  or  have  entirely  disap 
peared,  leaving  deserts  where  their  waters  once  stood. 

The  building  materials  of  the  Cordilleran  district  are, 
owing  to  the  complicated  geology  of  the  country,  ex 
tremely  varied.  They  include  not  only  the  ordinary 
crystalline  and  sedimentary  rocks,  but  many  kinds  of 
stone  formed  by  volcanic  action. 

Little  is  known  concerning  the  mineral  resources  of 
the  Cordilleras  north  of  the  line  between  Canada  and 
the  United  States. 

The  region  is  difficult  to  explore  for  its  metals,  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  much  more  brush  and  forest  clad  than 
the  parts  of  the  district  to  the  southward.  This  cover 
ing  of  vegetation  hides  the  rocks  from  the  prospector's 
eye.  On  the  other  hand,  from  the  Canadian  line  south 
ward  to  southern  Mexico,  the  surface  is  generally  desti 
tute  of  woods  and  often  without  a  covering  of  soil,  so  that 
the  character  of  the  rocks  and  their  mineral  contents  are 
relatively  well  revealed.  In  large  part,  the  rapid  exten 
sion  of  mining  in  this  great  field  is  due  to  the  ease  with 
which  the  mineral  wealth  is  discovered. 


EFFECT    OF    THE    FORM    OF    NORTH    AMERICA.         233 


CHAPTER   VI. 

EFFECT  OF  THE  FORM  OF  NORTH  AMERICA  ON  THE  HIS 
TORY  OF  THE  COLONISTS  FROM  EUROPE  AND  THEIR 
DESCENDANTS. 

Position  of  first  European  settlements.  Difficulty  of  penetrating  into  the 
interior.  Successive  steps  of  the  westward  movement  of  the  people. 
Commercial  growth.  History  of  Spanish  conquests.  Influence  of  geo 
graphic  conditions  on  slavery  ;  on  the  issue  of  the  Civil  War.  Influence 
of  the  Mississippi  River. 

WE  have  already  seen  how  the  form  of  North 
America  greatly  affected  the  way  in  which  it-  came  to 
be  settled  from  the  Old  World,  and  also  the  influence 
of  its  surface  on  certain  features  in  the  early  history  of 
these  colonies.  We  shall  now  go  further  and  trace  the 
way  in  which  the  shape  of  the  surface  has  influenced 
and  is  now  affecting  the  development  of  the  country. 

The  first  European  settlements  of  North  America 
were  placed  along  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  very  earliest  European  peoples  to 
come  to  this  continent  were  probably  the  ancestors  of  the 
present  Norwegians  or  Danes.  These  Scandinavians 
found  their  way  to  Iceland,  occupying  the  southeastern 
portion  of  that  country  in  870.  From  that  outpost  they 
rapidly  pushed  on  to  Greenland,  settling  the  southern 
and  western  portion  of  that  country,  thence  creeping 
down  along  the  shore  until  they  came  to  some  point,  the 
place  of  which  is  not  yet  known,  in  the  region  south  of 
the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  where  in  the  tenth  century 

iTeT.- 


234        EFFECT    OF    THE    FORM    OF    NORTH    AMERICA 

they  made  temporary  settlements.  This  early  colony 
was  maintained  but  a  brief  time.  Thus  the  first 
European  colonists  occupied  only  the  northeastern  out 
skirts  of  the  continent.  The  French,  the  English,  the 
Dutch,  and  the  Spaniards  contended  with  each  other  for 
the  possession  of  the  continent  with  the  result  that  in 
the  beginning  of  this  century  the  Spaniards  held  the 
whole  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  claimed  the  greater 
part  of  the  Pacific  coast ;  the  English,  the  section  of 
what  is  now  the  United  States,  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  north  of  the  Gulf  states,  though  their 
real  possessions  were  practically  limited  to  the  region 
north  of  the  states  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama  and  east 
of  the  Mississippi  River.  Already  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century,  two  nations,  which  had  originally  held  large 
areas  of  North  America,  had  yielded  their  territory  to 
the  English;  namely,  the  French  and  the  Hollanders. 
To  the  United  States  fell  that  portion  of  the  territory 
occupied  by  the  British,  south  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and 
a  considerable  part  of  that  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
River. 

The  extension  of  the  English  colonies  was  limited 
not  only  by  the  resistance  of  the  aborigines,  but  by  the 
fact  that  they  had  no  good  way  into  the  interior  of 
the  continent.  The  French  had  used  the  channel  of  the 
St.  Lawrence;  the  Spanish  and  French  for  a  little  while, 
the  channel  of  the  Mississippi,  and  so  won  their  way 
to  the  great  fertile  districts  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
The  English  were  separated  from  that  field  by  the 
ridges  of  the  Alleghanies,  a  rough  country  occupied  by 
very  dense  forests.  If  Canada  had,  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  joined  the  United  ~States,  the  way  into  the 
interior  of  the  continent,  through  the  chain  of  the  Great 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OK    THE    COLONISTS.  235 

Lakes,  would  have  been  open  to  the  whole  of  the 
English  people,  but,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Cana 
dian  country  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  British, 
the  people  of  the  United  States  could  not  use  it.  There 
was  a  natural  way  up  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk  from 
the  Hudson,  but  about  the  head  of  that  river  was  the 
stronghold  of  the  most  warlike  of  the  American  savages. 
Until  they  were  subjugated,  and  the  people  of  the  Amer 
ican  Union  obtained  control  of  ports  on  Lake  Erie,  the 
Great  Lakes  were  useless  to  them.  This  end  was  not 
attained  until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 
The  first  good  pathway  through  the  Appalachians  was 
from  the  Virginia  settlements,  by  way  of  the  Shenandoah 
Valley,  thence  across  the  head-waters  of  the  Tennessee, 
a  tributary  of  the  Ohio,  and  then  over  Cumberland 
Mountain  to  a  low  gap,  which  gave  access  to  the  plain 
lands  and  open  woods  of  the  Ohio  Valley.  Hence  it 
came  about  that  the  first  people  of  English  blood  to 
found  settlements  on  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi 
were  the  Virginians,  who  took  with  them  their  Afri 
can  servants,  and  founded  slavery  west  of  the  moun 
tains.  Also  by  way  of  the  upper  Tennessee  River 
the  state  of  Tennessee  was  settled. 

For  a  long  time  after  Kentucky  became  occupied  by 
the  Virginians -the  Indians  and  their  allies,  the  British, 
still  held  the  country  north  of  the  Ohio.  In  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  mother  coun 
try  had  pretty  thoroughly  dispossessed  the  French 
from  all  the  territory  now  occupied  by  the  states  of 
Illinois,  Indiana  and  Ohio,  and  Michigan.  It  was 
more  than  thirty  years  after  Kentucky  passed  into  the 
control  of  the  English  people  before  the  region  north  of 
the  Ohio  and  south  of  the  Great  Lakes  was  possessed 


236    EFFECT  OF  THE  FORM  OF  NORTH  AMERICA 

by  our  people.  Gradually  good  wagon  roads  were  made 
through  the  northern  part  of  the  Appalachian  district, 
a  country  much  more  difficult  to  traverse  than  that 
of  Virginia  because  the  undergrowth  of  the  forest 
was  thicker  and  the  surface  was  scattered  over  with 
bowlders,  and  intersected  with  swamps,  as  is  the  case 
in  all  glaciated  countries.  The  great  advantage  of 
routes  to  the  west  by  the  way  of  the  upper  Tennessee 
was  that  the  forests  were  less  tangled  and  the  surface 
of  the  ground  much  more  even  than  in  the  glacial  coun 
try  to  the  northward. 

Although  the  numerous  wagon-ways  which  were  built 
between  the  years  1815  and  1840  from  the  old  settle 
ments  of  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  Mississippi  Valley 
enabled  a  large  number  of  emigrants  from  the  older 
states  to  gain  access  to  this  country,  it  was  not  until 
railways  were  pushed  through  these  mountains  that  the 
rapid  occupation  of  this  wide  and  fertile  land  began. 
It  was  a  great  advantage  for  the  railways,-  as  well  as 
for  the  earlier  wagon  roads,  that  as  soon  as  they  had 
passed  the  relatively  narrow  region  of  mountains  they 
entered  upon  broad  plains  which  were  generally  but 
partly  forest  clad,  so  that  the  cost  of  constructing 
these  roads  was  not  great.  From  1815  to  1840  the  set 
tlements  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  were  mainly  limited 
to  the  forest  country  which  occupies  the  eastern  portion 
of  that  valley.  It  was  necessary  for  every  farmer  to 
hew  down  the  forest  from  all  the  fields  which  he  won 
to  tillage,  and  after  this  serious  task  was  accomplished 
it  was  generally  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  before  the 
stumps  disappeared  from  the  ground  to  such  an  extent 
that  tillage  was  easy. 

After   1840  the  immigrants  broke  through  into  the 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    COLONISTS.  237 

prairie  district,  and  rapidly  drove  out  the  Indians  from 
those  great  plains.  In  this  region  the  task  of  winning 
farms  did  not  demand  more  than  the  tenth  part  of  the 
labor  required  in  the  forest-clad  portions  of  the  country. 
The  construction  of  railways  proceeded  with  amazing 
celerity.  The  great  rivers  of  the  Mississippi  Valley 
afforded  ready  access  to  a  large  portion  of  the  surface, 
and  so  the  white  population  swept  over  the  plains  with 
great  rapidity,  winning,  in  fifty  years,  a  larger  area 
of  the  continent  to  the  uses  of  civilization  than  had 
been  won  in  the  two  centuries  of  previous  growth. 

If  the  whole  of  this  country  had  been  clad  with 
forests,  as  is  much  of  the  eastern  portion  of  the  Ohio 
Valley  to  this  day,  the  movement  of  the  population  could 
not  have  been  anything  like  as  rapid.  It  is  probable 
that  if  the  country  had  been  densely  wooded,  the  frontier 
could  not,  at  the  present  time,  have  advanced  much  be 
yond  the  line  of  the  Mississippi.  We  thus  see  how  im 
portant  to  man  are  the  simpler  physical  features  of  the 
land.  The  Appalachians  restrained  the  colonial  popula 
tion  to  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  rich  forest-lands  of  the 
Ohio  Valley  gave  a  new  field  for  a  portion  of  this  people, 
but  it  required  more  than  fifty  years  to  push  the  farm 
ing  country  up  to  the  edge  of  the  prairies  of  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  while  it  has  taken  scarce  a  third  of  the 
century  to  extend  the  culture  from  the  margin  of  the 
front  district  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

We  thus  see  how  profoundly  the  general  shape  of 
the  continent  affected  the  early  history  of  the  Euro 
peans  within  its  area.  The  great  fertile  basin  of  the 
Mississippi  was  not  accessible  to  the  English  or  Dutch 
settlements,  nor  was  it  easy  to  be  entered  by  the  French 
or  the  Spaniards.  The  swift  current  of  the  Mississippi, 


238    EFFECT  OF  THE  FORM  OF  NORTH  AMERICA 

and  the  vast  marshes  which  border  it  for  a  great  part 
of  its  length,  made  it  difficult  to  settle  the  valley  from 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  way  through  the  St.  Lawrence 
Valley  is  frost-bound  for  half  the  year  and  is  inter 
rupted  by  the  rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the 
Falls  of  Niagara,  as  well  as  by  the  highlands  between 
the  great  lakes  and  the  Mississippi  waters.  So  the 
French  and  Spanish  were  kept  from  more  than  a 
nominal  control  of  the  heart  of  the  continent  until 
the  British  settlements  gained  strength  to  break  over 
the  barriers  of  the  Appalachians  and  possess  this  im 
perial  domain. 

The  most  important  commercial  growth  of  the  United 
States  dates  from  the  extension  of  settlements  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  At  first  the  descending  waters  of 
that  stream,  and  afterwards  the  Erie  Canal  and  its  con 
nected  artificial  water-ways,  and  yet  later  the  railways, 
have  conveyed  the  crops  of  this  fertile  land  to  the 
sea-shore,  whence  they  have  gone  to  the  markets  of 
Europe.  The  greater  part  of  the  ability  and  energy 
of  this  country  since  about  1790  to  the  present  day  has 
been  devoted  to  the  subjugation  of  this  central  valley 
of  the  continent. 

For  a  long  time  after  the  Mississippi  Valley  had  be 
come  the  seat  of  extensive  settlements  derived  from  the 
Atlantic  coast,  the  Cordilleran  region  remained  almost 
unknown.  The  branches  of  the  Mississippi  River  which 
extend  towards  it  are,  with  the  exception  of  the  Missouri, 
unnavigable,  and  this  stream  at  the  head  of  its  convenient 
navigation  lies  several  hundred  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
mountain  wall.  Moreover,  the  plain  country  which  ex 
tends  eastward  from  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
is,  for  a  considerable  distance  from  their  base,  so  dry  as 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    COLONISTS.  239 

to  be  mostly  unfit  for  farming  purposes.  Added  to  this 
is  the  fact  that  the  Rocky  Mountain  district,  and  the 
plains  which  border  it,  were  ranged  over  by  large  tribes 
of  warlike  Indians,  who  found  their  support  in  hunting 
the  buffalo,  and  were  thereby  kept  in  a  nomadic  and  very 
savage  state.  It  was  not  until  the  Mexican  War  led  to  the 
acquisition  of  California  by  the  United  States,  that 
these  mountains  began  to  be  carefully  explored.  The 
discovery  of  gold  in  the  region  about  San  Francisco  in 
the  year  1848  speedily  gave  a  certain  commercial  im 
portance  to  this  region  and  made  it  necessary  to  con 
nect  it  by  other  means  than  the  sea  with  the  remainder 
of  the  United  States.  At  first  this  connection  was  by 
means  of  wagon  road  of  a  rude  sort ;  but  the  rapid 
extension  of  the  transcontinental  commerce  led  to  the 
construction  of  several  railways  across  the  Cordilleras. 
The  first  railway  connection  between  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  the  Pacific  coast  was  completed  in  1870. 
Since  then  three  other  railways  have  been  constructed 
across  the  continent  and  a  great  many  branch  roads 
carried  through  to  different  parts  of  the  Cordilleras. 
The  result  has  been  that  the  last  half  of  the  present 
century  has  been  characterized  by  the  subjugation  of 
this  region  to  the  uses  of  our  race. 

We  may  thus  divide  the  westward  progress  of  the 
English-speaking  peoples  in  North  America  into  three 
periods;  the  first  extending  from  the  time  of  settlement 
in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  near 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth,  a  period  of  150  years,  in 
which  this  people  were  confined  almost  altogether  to 
the  narrow  strip  of  fertile  lands  to  the  eastward  of  the 
Appalachians.  Next,  a  period  from  about  1790  to 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  which  they 


240    EFFECT  OF  THE  FORM  OF  NORTH  AMERICA 

obtained,  substantially,  control  of  the  Mississippi  Val 
ley.  Third,  the  last  forty  years  of  the  present  cen 
tury,  in  which  they  have  overcome  the  difficulties 
which  beset  the  occupation  of  the  Cordilleran  district. 
The  movements  of  the  population  in  Canada  have  been 
in  a  certain  way  parallel  to  those  in  the  United  States. 
That  portion  of  the  English-speaking  people  have 
recently  won  their  way  beyond  the  difficult  grounds  at 
the  head  of  Lake  Superior,  and  entered  on  the  posses 
sion  of  the  wide  strip  of  fertile  lands  which  lie  in  the 
valley  of  the  Red  River  of  the  North,  the  Saskatchewan 
and  other  neighboring  streams.  They  have  also,  by 
means  of  a  railway,  broken  through  the  barriers  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  obtained  connection  with  their 
considerable  settlements  on  the  Pacific  coast.  These 
three  stages  in  the  development  of  the  English-speak 
ing  countries,  the  Atlantic  coast  stage,  that  of  the  val 
ley  of  the  Mississippi,  that  of  the  Cordilleras  and  the 
Pacific  coast,  are  thus  seen  to  correspond  to  the  great 
physical  divisions  of  the  continent. 

It  is  worth  while  to  notice  in  some  detail  the 
history  of  Mexico,  as  affording  a  contrast  between 
two  European  races,  the  English  and  the  Spaniards. 
Mexico  was  occupied  as  a  Spanish  colony  more  than 
a  hundred  years  before  the  English-speaking-  people 
obtained  a  foothold  in  the  northern  part  of  the  conti 
nent.  From  Mexico  access  to  the  Cordilleras,  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  and  the  Pacific  coast  of  California 
is  relatively  easy,  but  with  these  advantages  the 
Spaniards  in  the  beginning  of  this  century,  when 
Mexico  had  its  largest  area,  had  won  only  a  small 
area  in  Texas,  and  a  portion  of  the  coast  of  California 
beyond  the  original  limits  of  their  colonies.  In  two 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    COLONISTS.  24! 

centuries  and  a  half,  during  which  the  English-speaking 
people  have  subjugated  the  greater  part  of  the  conti 
nent,  the  Spanish  settlements  have  made  but  trifling 
gains  in  population,  and  have  added  but  little  to  their 
domain. 

The  difference  in  the  success  of  these  two  peoples  is 
probably  due  in  part  to  original  differences  in  the  popu 
lation,  and  in  part  to  differences  in  the  character  of  the 
countries  which  they  have  occupied.  The  Spaniards 
who  settled  in  Mexico  did  not  displace  the  Indian  popu 
lation,  but  combined  with  the  aborigines,  making  a 
mixed  race  of  relatively  feeble  capacity.  The  British 
everywhere  displaced  the  native  people,  and  have  re 
mained  essentially  unmixed  with  the  aboriginal  popula 
tion.  In  Mexico  the  greater  part  of  the  country  so 
far  lacks  rain  that  tillage  produces  little  more  than  the 
food  required  for  local  consumption.  The  foreign  ex 
ports  have  consisted  mainly  of  the  precious  metals. 
The  English-speaking  people  acquired  possession  of 
that  part  of  the  continent  which  is  well  suited  to  the 
production  of  great  staples  of  agriculture,  and  thus 
were  enabled  rapidly  to  accumulate  wealth. 

The  swift  growth  in  population  of  the  English  part 
of  North  America  has  largely  been  due  to  the  great 
body  of  immigrants  which  have  come  to  that  region 
from  northern  Europe,  particularly  those  of  English, 
Scotch,  Irish,  German,  and  Scandinavian  origin.  These 
people  are  attracted  to  the  United  States,  not  only  by 
the  rapid  development  of  its  industries  consequent  on 
the  access  which  was  gained  to  the  Mississippi  Valley, 
but  also  because  the  climate  of  the  Northern  states  of 
the  Union  is  so  much  like  that  of  the  countries  from 
which  they  came.  The  rapid  growth  in  population  in 


242         EFFECT    OF    THE    FORM    OF    NORTH    AMERICA 

the  Mississippi  Valley,  as  well  as  on  the  Atlantic 
sea-board,  has  made  it  possible  for  these  English- 
speaking  people  to  push  the  Spaniards  and  the  French 
from  the  northern  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
from  the  Pacific  coast,  to  Texas  and  a  portion  of  the 
Cordilleras.  By  the  circumstances  of  their  develop 
ment,  by  their  native  character,  and  by  the  physical 
conditions  the  English-speaking  people  have  gained 
a  firm  hold  on  the  continent  of  North  America ; 
they  have  possession  of  all  the  parts  of  it  which  are 
well  suited  to  the  development  of  the  race.  Those 
portions  which  are  occupied  by  Mexico  and  the  Cen 
tral  American  states,  and  also  the  West  India  Islands 
are,  because  of  the  climate  and  the  nature  of  the  soil 
or  because  of  the  quality  of  the  population,  undesirable 
territories  for  the  descendants  of  northern  Europeans. 

The  soil  and  climate  of  the  United  States,  and  in  a 
less  pronounced  way  of  the  portions  of  the  Canadian 
domain,  which  lie  in  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrrence, 
and  in  the  Winnipeg  district,  are  well  suited  for  varied 
and  profitable  agriculture.  Nearly  all  the  crops  which 
are  tilled  in  the  Old  World  do  well  on  one  portion  or 
another  of  this  surface,  and  in  addition  to  these  re 
sources  of  the  Old  World  America  has  in  maize  a  pecul 
iar  resource.  This  plant  is  nowhere  else  so  successful 
over  a  wide  area  as  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States.  Since  the  settlement  of  the  country  it  has 
been  the  principal  grain  crop  of  the  continent.  A  large 
portion  of  the  more  southern  district  of  the  continent 
is  well  suited  to  the  growth  of  cotton.  The  soil  is 
fertile,  the  summer  is  long  and  moderately  dry,  both  of 
which  conditions  favor  the  growth  of  this  plant,  with 
the  result  that  more  than  one-half  the  world's  supply 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    COLONISTS.  243 

of  this  staple  is  produced  in  North  America.  Tobacco 
is  also  well  suited  to  the  climate  and  soil  of  North 
America,  and  is  more  largely  produced  in  this  than  in 
any  other  continent. 

Although  the  agricultural  conditions  of  North  America 
are  and  have  been  favorable  to  the  growth  of  a  farming 
population,  and  thereby  to  the  best  interests  of  its  civil 
ization,  the  peculiar  fitness  of  the  country  for  the 
culture  of  cotton  and  tobacco  has  been  in  certain  ways 
disadvantageous  to  it.  The  institution  of  negro  slavery 
was  very  profitable  to  the  planters  who  grew  these  crops ; 
the1  consequence  was,  that  this  institution  was  main 
tained  and  extended  in  the  southern  portions  of  the 
United  States  long  after  it  had  completely  disappeared 
from  all  other  lands  in  the  control  of  the  English  race. 
The  consequences  of  these  conditions  have  been  very 
great.  In  the  first  place,  the  profitableness  of  slavery 
led  to  the  importation  of  a  great  number  of  Africans, 
who  have  increased  rapidly  in  numbers,  and  now  amount 
to  somewhere  near  one-tenth  of  the  total  population. 
The  political  difficulties  connected  with  slavery  led  to 
the  greatest  civil  war  in  modern  times. 

In  the  limits  of  the  slave-holding  district,  and  in  the 
history  of  the  Civil  War,  to  which  the  institution  gave 
rise,  we  see  certain  very  interesting  effects  of  the  con 
ditions  which  climate  and  soil  bring  about.  Slavery 
was  profitable  only  in  the  regions  where  cotton  and 
tobacco  could  be  profitably  cultivated.  Both  of  these 
crops  demand  large  amounts  of  labor  of  a  cheap  sort ; 
labor  which  can  be  entirely  at  the  farmer's  command. 
They  can  be  grown  to  the  best  advantage  on  consider 
able  plantations.  They  require  a  long  summer  which 
shall  be  rather  dry.  The  result  was  that  it  was  only  in 


244         EFFECT    OF    THE    FORM    OF    NORTH    AMERICA 

the  Southern  states  of  the  Union  that  slavery  was  main 
tained,  although  it  at  first  existed  in  all  the  American 
colonies.  It  disappeared  from  the  region  north  of  the 
tobacco  and  cotton  fields ;  it  found  no  place  north  of 
the  Ohio  or  Missouri  Rivers,  and  was  hardly  profitable 
in  Maryland,  Kentucky,  or  Missouri,  where  cotton  can 
not  be  advantageously  grown.  Moreover,  the  highland 
district  of  the  Appalachians,  which  occupies  about  one- 
tenth  of  the  portion  of  the  South  which  is  fitted  for 
agriculture,  and  projects  far  towards  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
was,  by  the  roughness  of  its  surface  and  the  peculiari 
ties  of  its  climate,  essentially  unfit  for  plantations  where 
the  crops  should  be  tilled  by  negro  labor.  This  district 
never  was  to  any  extent  occupied  by  slave-holders,  and 
thus  it  divided  the  South  by  a  wide  region  characterized 
by  free  labor  alone. 

When  the  Civil  War  came,  the  South  found  itself  at 
a  great  disadvantage  on  account  of  this  peculiar  to 
pographic  feature  of  the  country.  All  the  seceding 
states,  except  Tennessee  and  Arkansas,  have  extensive 
sea-fronts ;  and  as  the  South  was  not  a  maritime  coun 
try,  partly  because  of  the  generally  shallow  nature  of 
its  ports,  it  failed  to  obtain  any  strength  on  the  sea. 
It  was,  therefore,  cut  off  from  free  commerce  with 
the  Old  World,  and  thus  deprived  of  its  natural  sources 
of  supply  of  materials  for  war,  as  well  as  of  its  chance 
of  finding  a  market  for  its  agricultural  products. 

Moreover,  the  principal  river  of  the  continent,  the 
Mississippi,  cut  the  Confederate  states  in  twain.  As 
soon  as  the  Federal  fleets  and  armies  obtained  con 
trol  of  this  river,  the  Southern  people  were  at  a  hope 
less  disadvantage  in  this  contest.  The  Northern 
states,  with  their  system  of  small  farms  and  free  labor, 


ON    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    COLONISTS.  24$ 

afforded  a  very  much  larger  share  of  able-bodied  sol 
diers  in  proportion  to  the  population  than  eould  be  ob 
tained  in  the  Southern  states,  where  a  large  part  of  the 
soil-tillers  were  slaves.  In  this  way  we  see  that  while 
the  physical  conditions  of  the  country  favored  the  devel 
opment  of  slavery  and  thus  brought  about  the  Civil  War, 
they  likewise  gave  a  great  advantage  to  the  Northern 
states  in  their  effort  to  subdue  the  rebellion  which  arose 
from  the  presence  of  that  social  system. 


246  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION    OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

Conditions  of  commerce.  Continuous  increase  of  exchange  between  coun 
tries.  Railroad  transportation  of  the  continent:  coast  line;  harbors; 
rivers.  Lakes  and  seas.  Sources  of  power :  iron;  fuel.  Underground 
water.  Earthquakes.  Natural  conditions  affecting  the  settlement  by 
Europeans.  Relations  to  Indians.  Exports:  furs;  timber;  fisheries. 
Importation  of  slaves.  Isthmus  of  Darien. 

IN  the  early  days,  all  civilized  peoples  depended  but 
little  on  supplies  drawn  from  other  countries.  Each 
considerable  community  produced  from  its  own  labor 
nearly  all  it  consumed.  In  this  early  state  only  luxu 
ries,  ornaments,  or  rare  articles  of  food  came  from 
abroad.  Gradually,  however,  it  has  been  found  most 
advantageous  for  each  country  to  produce  those  arti 
cles  which  nature  has  fitted  its  soil  or  rocks  to  yield. 
In  the  present  state  of  the  more  enlightened  countries 
none  of  them  could  maintain  their  populations  in  com 
fort,  except  for  the  contributions  of  other  lands. 
Each  year  this  interchange  of  products  of  the  soil, 
of  the  mine,  or  of  other  intelligent  labor,  rapidly  in 
creases,  and  it  is  evident  that  in  the  future  the  fitness 
of  any  country  for  civilized  man  will  depend  not  only 
on  what  the  country  can  produce,  but  on  the  ways  by 
which  the  products  may  find  access  to  the  markets  of 
the  world,  and  by  which  the  people  may  in  turn  receive 
the  articles  for  which  they  exchange  their  own  products. 

In   the  broad   fields   of  a   continent   the  question  of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  247 

internal  transportation  is  almost  as  important  as  that 
which  concerns  the  intercourse  with  other  countries. 
In  an  area  such  as  North  America  the  larger  part  of  the 
needs  of  any  region  may  be  supplied  from  the  lands 
diversely  situated  in  other  portions  of  the  continental 
area.  Thus  the  crops  of  the  farmer  in  Minnesota  may 
serve  to  feed  the  cotton-planters  of  the  Gulf  states,  and 
the  wool  of  Texas  may  supply  the  mills  of  New  Eng 
land.  The  coals  of  Pennsylvania  go  to  the  recesses  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  the  preserved  salmon  from 
Puget  Sound  are  sold  in  every  state  in  the  Union.  The 
great  variety  in  the  soil  and  climate  and  under-earth 
products  of  North  America  has  led  to  the  institution 
of  a  vast  internal  and  external  commerce,  the  extension 
of  which  is  greatly  favored  by  the  physical  features  of 
the  continent. 

One  of  the  geographic  advantages  of  North  America 
for  its  internal  as  well  as  its  external  commerce,  is 
the  vast  extent  of  its  coast-line  and  the  sufficient 
nature  of  the  harbors  along  the  coast.  From  Labra 
dor  to  the  mouth  of  the  Chesapeake,  these  shel 
ters  for  ships,  where  they  may  receive  and  discharge 
cargoes  as  well  as  escape  from  the  dangers  of  the  sea, 
are  very  numerous  and  advantageously  situated.  From 
Chesapeake  Bay,  southward,  along  the  shore  to  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien,  the  harbors  though  less  good  are  by 
dredging  and  jetties  made  to  serve  for  the  needs  of 
ships  of  moderate  size.  On  the  Pacific  coast  from  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien  to  southern  California  the  harbors 
are  not  good.  It  happens  that  they  are  less  necessary 
along  that  part  of  the  continent,  for  the  reason  that  the 
interior  country  of  this  isthmus  district  is  relatively 
narrow;  there  is  not  much  sent  away  by  the  sea  or  taken 


248  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

in  from  ships.  From  the  southern  part  of  the  United 
States  on  the  Pacific  coast  northward  to  Behring  Straits 
the  harbors  are  on  the  whole  excellent.  On  the 
coast  of  California  they  are  not  numerous,  but  sufficient 
for  the  needs  of  trade.  That  at  San  Francisco  is  one 
of  the  finest  in  the  world.  From  southern  Oregon x 
northward  the  coast  is  better  provided  with  such  shel 
ters  than  any  other  part  of  the  world  except  Scandi 
navia. 

The  extended  coast-line  of  North  America  makes  it 
easy  for  a  large  part  of  the  states  to  communicate  with 
each  other  by  the  way  of  the  sea.  Twenty-two  states 
of  the  American  Union  face  on  the  sea-shore,  and  none 
of  the  colonies  or  separate  governments  of  the  conti 
nent  lack  this  contact  with  the  ocean.  The  internal 
water-ways  are  also  very  favorable  for  commerce.  The 
chain  of  Great  Lakes,  and  the  St.  Lawrence  through 
which  they  discharge,  make  a  northern  water-way  into 
the  centre  of  the  continent.  Although  by  water-falls 
and  rapids,  Lake  Superior  was  separated  from  the 
other  lakes,  and  all  these  lakes  from  the  sea,  they 
are  now  connected  by  canals  passable  by  large  ships. 
It  is  likely  that  in  time  Lake  Superior  will  be  similarly 
connected  by  means  of  canals  with  the  other  lakes 
which  stretch  far  to  the  northwards. 

Of  the  many  rivers  in  North  America  the  Mississippi 
affords  the  most  extended  system  of  channels  for  com 
merce.  This  stream  and  its  tributaries  furnish  water 
ways  to  a  large  part  of  the  states  which  occupy  the  great 
valley  of  the  continent.  Its  navigable  waters  extend  to 
seventeen  states,  from  many  of  which  it  is  possible  to  go 
by  large  vessels  directly  to  the  sea.  Including  the  dis 
tricts  which  face  upon  the  Gr~at  Lakes,  all  the  states 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  249 

and  the  territories  of  the  Union,  except  seven  which  lie 
within  the  Rocky  Mountains,  have  good  natural  water 
ways  to  the  ocean.  So,  too,  all  the  habitable  portions 
of  British  America,  except  the  Cordilleran  district  in  the 
western  portion  of  Canada,  are  more  or  less  well  placed 
for  communication  by  water  either  with  the  St.  Law 
rence  or  Hudson's  Bay.  Mexico  and  the  Central 
American  states  being  in  the  peninsular  district  of  the 
continent  have  no  great  rivers,  but  the  interior  country 
is  mostly  not  far  from  the  coast. 

The  greater  part  of  the  continent  of  North  America 
is  composed  of  tolerably  level  land  over  which  railways 
can  easily  be  constructed,  and  the  mountain  districts, 
even  the  elevated  portions  of  the  Cordilleras,  are  from 
the  divided  nature  of  the  ranges  more  easily  traversed 
by  such  ways  than  the  greater  elevations  of  the  Old 
World.  Thus  the  surface  of  this  land  is  extremely  well 
adapted  to  the  interchange  of  products  of  labor  between 
the  different  portions  of  the  country. 

The  great  inclosed  seas  of  North  America,  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean,  afford  a  wide  field  for  com 
merce  ;  except  in  the  period  of  heavy  storms,  known  as 
the  hurricane  months,  extending  from  the  middle  of  Au 
gust  to  the  first  of  December,  these  waters  are  remarkably 
well  suited  for  navigation.  They  have  a  greater  area  of 
fertile  soils  along  their  shores  than  we  find  in  any  other 
mediterranean  seas  in  the  world.  They  afford  a  ready 
intercommunication  between  the  great  central  valley 
of  North  America  and  the  northern  portion  of  South 
America.  On  the  north  and  east  they  are  bordered  by 
the  wonderful  chain  of  isles  known  as  the  Antilles, 
which  next  after  the  Malayan  Archipelago,  is  the  largest 
and  most  fertile  group  of  islands  in  the  world. 


25O  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

The  position  of  North'  America  with  reference  to  the 
commerce  of  the  world  is  extremely  favorable.  On  the 
east  lie  the  western  shores  of  the  Old  World,  in  such  a 
position  that  there  is  a  swift  and  easy  water  communi 
cation  with  several  states  of  Europe,  and  by  way  of  the 
Mediterranean  with  a  portion  of  Asia.  On  the  west  there 
is  open  sea  to  the  eastern  coasts  of  Asia,  the  islands 
of  the  Malayan  Archipelago,  Australia,  and  New  Zealand. 
None  of  the  other  continents,  save  perhaps  Europe,  are 
on  the  whole  so  advantageously  placed  with  reference  to 
commerce.  In  the  days  before  steam  navigation  the 
stormy  nature  of  the  North  Atlantic  made  the  passage 
to  Europe  at  once  slow  and  dangerous.  These  difficul 
ties  have  been  overcome  by  steam  vessels,  and  thus  it 
now  requires  only  a  week  for  a  journey  from  the  ports 
of  the  United  States  to  those  of  Europe  where  of  old  it 
required  about  six  times  as  long. 

The  only  part  of  North  America  which  is  not  advan 
tageously  situated  for  connection  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  the  northern  portion  of  the  continent.  Al 
though  these  lands  of  high  latitude  are  much  intersected 
by  straits  and  bays  which  afford  excellent  harbors,  the 
long-continued  winter  keeps  them  generally  in  an  ice- 
locked  condition.  The  great  inland  sea  of  Hudson's 
Bay  is  only  accessible  to  ships  for  about  four  months  in 
the  year,  and  its  western  shores  are  so  far  destitute  of 
good  harbors,  and  slope  so  gently  out  to  a  great  dis 
tance  in  the  form  of  mud-flats,  that  it  would  be  difficult 
to  make  it  useful  for  purposes  of  navigation. 

For  two  hundred  years  a  great  deal  of  effort  was  given 
to  finding  a  passage  by  the  sea  from  Davis  Strait  to 
Behring  Strait.  Although  it  was  finally  proved  possible 
with  great  labor  to  take  a  ship  through  this  way,  at  least 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  251 

in  favorable  seasons,  the  channels  are  so  blocked  with 
ice  that  it  can  never  be  a  useful  commercial  route. 
Moreover,  the  principal  necessity  which  led  the  English 
people  to  search  so  long  for  a  route  by  way  of  the  Arctic 
Ocean  to  the  ports  of  the  Pacific  has  passed  away.  Of 
old,  when  the  Spanish  had  control  of  a  large  part  of  the 
tropical  seas,  it  was  very  desirable  for  British  ships  to 
avoid  these  waters  in  the  journey  to  the  far  East.  The 
passage  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  also  required  a 
great  deal  of  time.  In  modern  days  the  dangers  which 
ships  used  to  encounter  from  the  Spanish  fleets  or  from 
pirates  have  disappeared.  Moreover,  the  ship  canal 
through  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  has  removed  the  necessity 
of  sailing  to/near  the  south  pole  in  order  to  go  to  the 
ports  of  western  America  or  China. 

If  the  northern  portion  of  North  America  were  a 
fertile  country,  the  inconvenience  arising  from  the  lack 
of  access  to  the  harbors  brought  about  by  the  long  win 
ter  would  be  very  serious,  but  the  greater  portion  of 
the  district  which  can  produce  any  articles  of  impor 
tance  to  commerce  is  easily  accessible  to  the  Great 
Lakes,  or  to  the  railways  which  may  connect  them  with 
Canada  and  the  United  States. 

The  conditions  of  the  soil,  climate,  and  under-earth 
resources  in  North  America  make  it  plain  that  this 
continent  is  to  have  very  important  relations  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  arising  from  an  abundant  production 
of  food  articles,  and  of  certain  important  metals,  as  well 
as  materials  to  be  used  as  fuel.  It  is  already  the  princi 
pal  food-exporting  continent,  furnishing  more  grain  and 
edible  animals  to  European  markets  than  are  obtained 
from  any  other  land.  Among  the  metals  which  may  be 
made  the  articles  of  commerce,  iron,  copper,  and  lead 


252  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

have  the  foremost  place.  It  is  a  great  advantage  for 
the  continent  of  North  America  that  its  abundant  sup 
ply  of  coals  will  enable  it  to  win  these  metals  from  their 
ores  at  less  cost  than  in  any  other  region,  except  perhaps 
in  China  and  certain  small  parts  of  Europe. 

The  coal  of  North  America  and  the  sources  of 
supply  of  petroleum  are  more  plentiful  than  those  of 
any  other  continent,  except  perhaps  Asia.  South 
America,  so  far  as  is  known,  is  relatively  destitute  of 
these  materials,  and  the  stores  are  likely  to  be  drawn 
from  the  northern  continent.  It  is  a  peculiar  advantage 
of  these  stores  of  fuel  that  they  lie  mainly  in  portions 
of  North  America  which  are  near  the  sea,  and  to  a  large 
extent  they  are  upon  the  great  navigable  rivers,  the 
Mississippi  and  its  tributaries. 

Among  the  resources  of  North  America  which  have 
already  exercised  a  great  effect  on  its  commercial  devel 
opment,  and  are  likely  to  have  a  still  greater  influence 
in  the  time  to  come,  we  may  set  the  abundance  of  the 
means  by  which  power  may  be  won  for  manufactur 
ing  purposes.  This  power  is  available  for  arts  of  all 
sorts  which  demand  machinery.  In  large  part  it 
comes  from  the  streams  of  considerable  fall  which  are 
used  to  drive  mill-wheels.  The  northeastern  portion 
of  North  America  and  a  part  of  the  Southern  states 
which  lie  within  the  highland  of  the  Appalachians  is 
exceedingly  well  fitted  to  afford  these  stores  of  'energy. 
In  New  England  and  other  portions  of  the  north,  where 
sands  and  gravel  of  the  glacial  period  are  very  thick, 
they  hold  a  great  deal  of  water  in  their  interstices  and 
so  keep  the  rivers  well  supplied.  There  are  also  many 
lakes  which  act  as  reservoirs  to  feed  the  streams.  In 
this  way  the  mills  are  supplied  with  power  throughout 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

the  year.  In  the  southern  Appalachians,  where  the 
rivers  drain  from  great  forests,  these  woods  act  as  a 
sponge,  and  deliver  the  rainfall  slowly.  Moreover,  in 
that  part  of  the  continent  the  rainfall  is  large  and  is  apt 
to  be  well  distributed  through  the  year. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  eastern  portion  of  the 
United  States  is  on  the  whole  a  more  favorable  region 
for  water-power  than  any  other  part  of  the  civilized 
world.  The  wide  distribution  of  coals  in  North  America 
makes  it  possible  to  obtain  cheap  fuel,  which  is  applied 
to  machinery  through  the  use  of  steam.  So  also  very 
extensive  fields  of  the  continent  containing  natural  gas 
afford  an  additional  source  of  the  energy  required  in 
the  arts.  These  conditions  make  it  certain  that  North 
America,  at  least  the  portion  of  the  continent  east  of 
.the  Mississippi,  is  likely  to  be  the  seat  of  very  extensive 
manufacturing  industries.  To  these  very  favorable  con 
ditions  we  must  add  that  this  district  is  everywhere  near 
the  sources  of  abundant  food  supply  ;  so  that,  unlike 
Northern  Europe,  which  has  to  obtain  a  large  part  of 
the  food  for  its  people  from  other  parts  of  the  world, 
this  region  has  a  farming  country  close  by  its  under-earth 
resources. 

UNDERGROUND    WATER. 

The  condition  of  the  underground  waters  of  a  country 
is  a  matter  of  much  economic  importance  to  its  people. 
Not  only  is  the  supply  for  domestic  purposes  generally 
drawn  from  this  source,  but  the  springs  which  discharge 
the  water  which  has  journeyed  far  underground  often 
contain  mineral  and  other  substances  which  give  them  a 
healing  value ;  or  they  are  valuable  on  account  of  the 
high  temperature  which  is  given  them  because  they 


254  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

have  penetrated  into  the  heated  deeper  earth.  North 
[  America  abounds  in  mineral  springs,  probably  being  in 
this  respect  only  less  rich  than  the  European  continent. 
The  most  important  of  these  are  placed,  as  is  usual  with 
such  sources,  in  the  mountain  districts,  where  deep 
rents  in  the  earth  permit  the  exit  of  water  that  has  pen 
etrated  far  underground.  In  the  Appalachian  district 
there  are  a  number  of  places  where  deep-journeyed 
waters  emerge.  They  extend  from  the  line  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada  to  Alabama,  the  springs 
occurring  in  Canada,  Vermont,  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  Tennessee,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia. 

In  this  eastern  part  of  the  United  States  there  are  no 
'  springs  of  a  high  temperature,  the  greatest  heat  being 
about  1 00°  F.  The  waters  are  generally  valued  for 
their  mineral  and  gaseous  contents  rather  than  for  the 
qualities  that  are  given  by  their  heat.  In  Virginia 
alone,  of  all  the  country  east  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
do  we  find  springs  warm  enough  to  be  of  use  in  the 
treatment  of  disease  because  of  their  heat  as  well  as 
their  other  qualities.  In  Arkansas  there  is  a  group  of 
hot  springs  whose  waters,  though  very  pure  as  regards 
mineral  matter,  have  a  high  temperature,  and  have  been 
found  valuable  in  the  treatment  of  many  diseases.  In 
the  Cordilleran  district,  on  account  of  the  recent  devel 
opment  of  volcanic  action,  the  rocks  beneath  the  moun 
tains  are  still  in  many  places  extremely  hot,  and  as  a 
result  we  find  in  these  regions  a  remarkable  develop 
ment  of  heated  springs.  The  fact  that  this  region  is 
far  from  the  great  centres  of  population  makes  these 
springs  as  yet  of  small  value ;  but  it  seems  certain  that 
in  the  time  to  come  they  will  be  of  much  service  to 
man.  In  this  region  there  are  also  great  numbers  of 


OF   NORTH   AMERICA.  255 

springs  which,  though  of  ordinary  temperature,  contain  a 
variety  of  mineral  substances,  and  are  certain  to  prove 
of  great  use  in  the  treatment  of  diseases. 

Scattered  widely  over  the  non-mountainous  regions  of 
North  America  we  find  many  less  important  sources 
whence  there  come  to  the  surface  a  class  of  waters 
which  have  a  somewhat  peculiar  origin.  These  waters 
arise  from  no  great  distance  underground,  and  originate 
in  the  stratified  rocks  which  were  deposited  in  the  sea, 
where  the  interspaces  between  the  bits  of  material  of 
which  they  are  composed  were  filled  with  the  brine  of 
the  ocean.  When  these  rocks  are  buried  beneath  other 
deposits,  the  slow  chemical  changes  oi  the  remains  of 
animals  and  plants  which  they  contain  cause  the  for 
mation  of  gases,  which  exert  a  great  pressure  and  force 
themselves,  along  with  the  water  in  which  they  are  dis 
solved,  through  the  joints  and  the  other  lines  of  weak 
ness  of  the  strata  to  the  open  air.  These  gas-impelled 
springs  are  generally  quite  saline,  but  they  contain  a 
great  quantity  of  substances  which  the  fluid  has  taken 
up  from  the  rocks  through  which  it  has  passed. 

In  the  ancient  days  these  salt  springs  were  greatly  re 
sorted  to  by  the  native  plant-eating  animals  of  the  coun 
try,  which  drank  eagerly  of  their  waters  and  thereby 
secured  the  share  of  salt  which  they  needed.  About 
certain  of  these  "salt-licks,"  as  the  pioneers  termed  them, 
we  commonly  find  in  the  swampy  places  vast  numbers  of 
the  bones  of  the  great  extinct  beasts  of  this  country 
which  passed  away  soon  after  the  close  of  the  last 
glacial  period.  Thus  at  Big  Bone  Lick,  in  Boone 
County,  Ky.,  where  several  salt  springs  emerge  in  a 
boggy  field,  the  ground  about  them  is  crowded  with 
the  bones  of  a  variety  of  great  animals  which  have  per- 


256  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

ished  from  the  country.  In  the  upper  layer  we  find  the 
/  skeletons  of  the  bisons,  elk,  and  deer  ;  lower  down  those 
of  caribou,  gigantic  musk  oxen,  elephants,  and  their 
kindred  the  mastodons,  as  well  as  an  extinct  species  of 
bison,  probably  the  ancestor  of  the  form  that  abounded 
in  this  country  two  hundred  years  ago.  These  salt 
licks  were  useful  to  the  frontiersman,  as  they  were  to 
his  predecessors  of  an  earlier  time.  By  boiling  down 
their  waters  he  made  salt  for  domestic  purposes, 
which  in  the  early  days  of  the  country  it  would  other 
wise  have  been  necessary  to  convey  from  the  shore  of 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  by  wagons  or  pack-horses. 

The  ordinary  springs  of  eastern  North  America,  and 
the  wells  which  often  take  their  place  as  sources  of  sup 
ply  for  country  houses,  generally  afford  tolerably  pure 
water.  In  nearly  all  the  region  where  the  earth  is  cov 
ered  by  glacial  debris  there  are  few  springs  of  any 
importance,  but  water  of  excellent  quality  can  be  ob 
tained  by  means  of  wells  from  the  beds  of  sand  and 
gravel.  In  the  limestone  districts  which  occupy  a  large 
part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  also  much  of  the 
other  parts  of  the  continent,  the  wells  and  springs 
afford  water  which  contains  a  rather  large  amount  of 
lime  and  other  mineral  matter.  The  quantity  of  this 
material  is  rarely  so  great  as  to  induce  serious  disease, 
but  in  certain  districts  it  appears  to  lead  to  the  forma 
tion  of  concretions  of  a  stony  nature  within  the  human 
body,  producing  maladies  which  sometimes  prove  fatal. 
In  the  Cordilleran  regions  and  the  arid  plains  which  lie 
on  their  eastern  border,  because  of  the  relatively  slight 
rainfall  which  prevails  there,  the  wells  and  springs  are 
often  excessively  charged  with  substances  which  make 
their  waters  unpalatable  and  even  unwholesome ;  in 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  257 

fact,  many  of  the  drier  parts  of  this  district  are  made 
almost  uninhabitable  from  this  cause.  In  time,  how 
ever,  this  evil  will  in  part  be  remedied  by  means  of 
reservoirs  in  the  hills,  which  will  serve  to  retain  the 
pure  snow-water  through  the  summer  season,  which  is 
the  time  of  drought  in  that  part  of  the  continent. 

Over  a  certain  portion  of  the  arid  lands  to  the  east  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  it  is  possible  to  obtain  water  by 
means  of  wells  bored  through  the  superficial  rocks  to 
strata,  such  as  porous  sandstones,  into  which  the  rain 
has  percolated,  displacing  the  water  which  was  built  into 
the  rocks  at  the  time  that  they  were  laid  down.  When 
the  rocks  have  a  basin-like  shape,  the, water  will  often 
mount  up  through  the  tube  and  attain  the  surface.  A 
simple  illustration  of  the  principle  on  which  these  gravity 
artesian  wells  work  can  be  secured  by  placing  two  deep 
saucers  one  within  the  other,  filling  the  interspace  be 
tween  them  with  water.  If  now  we  imagine  a  hole  drilled 
through  the  bottom  of  the  upper  saucer,  we  clearly  per 
ceive  that  the  water  must  ascend  by  means  of  the  open 
ing.  In  this  diagram  the  saucers  represent  layers  of 
rock  composed  mostly  of  clay  and  therefore  impervious 
to  water,  and  the  space  between  the  saucers  a  layer 
of  open-texture  sandstone  through  which  the  water  can 
creep  from  the  hills,  where  it  enters  the  layer  to  the 
lower  level  of  the  basin. 

In  many  cases  the  water  yielded  by  a  boring  does  not 
come  to  the  surface  because  of  the  basin -like  arrange 
ment  of  the  rocks,  but  is  forced  out  by  the  pressure  of 
gases,  as  in  the  case  of  the  salt  springs  before  men 
tioned.  Where  these  rocks  were  formed,  as  was  the  case 
with  many  of  the  beds  in  and  about  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains,  in  fresh-water  lakes,  they  naturally  contain  no 


258  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

saline  material,  and  when  they  are  pierced  by  borings 
and  the  imprisoned  gases  drive  out  the  water  in  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  drawn  from  a  soda  fountain,  the 
well  is  fit  for  the  use  of  man.  Considerable  areas  in 
the  region  about  the  head-waters  of  the  Missouri  River 
and  in  Texas  are  now  supplied  with  water  for  the  farms 
by  borings  made  in  such  strata. 

As  regards  the  measure  of  rain-supply  in  proportion 
to  its  area,  North  America  is  only  exceeded  by  South 
America  and  Europe ;  and  as  regards  the  distribution  of 
its  rainfall,  it  has  less  diversity  in  the  share  which  comes 
to  the  different  parts  of  its  surface  than  any  of  the  great 
lands  except  the  last  named.  It  has  no  such  extensive 
deserts  as  that  in  the  western  portion  of  South  Amer 
ica,  the  desert  of  Central  Australia,  or  that  of  interior 
Asia,  where  the  share  of  rain  is  too  small  to  permit  much 
culture.  The  only  tegion  where  the  rainfall  is  too  small 
in  amount  to  permit  the  soil  to  be  of  some  service  to 
men  either  for  tillage  or  pasturage,  lies  in  the  central 
portion  of  the  Cordilleras,  Northern  Mexico,  and  the 
great  promontory  of  Southern  California,  an  all  not  more 
than  one-twentieth  part  of  the  continent ;  and  even  in  a 
large  part  of  this  very  arid  country  there  are  numerous 
streams  which  flow  from  the  hills  where  the  melting 
winter  snows  afford  them  supply,  so  that  the  country  is 
not  unbroken  desert,  and  in  some  places  can  be  made 
fertile  by  irrigation. 

EARTHQUAKES. 

The  fitness  of  any  country  for  the  use  of  civilized  man 
is  often  much  affected  by  the  occurrence  of  severe  earth 
quakes,  which  are  destructive  to  life  and  property,  and 
very  discouraging  to  the  peopl^jwho  dwell  on  the  treach- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

erous  ground.  We  shall,  therefore,  consider  the  extent 
to  which  this  continent  is  liable  to  these  tremblings 
of  the  ground.  The  measure  of  this  danger  is  not 
yet  well  determined,  for  the  reason  that  a  large  part 
of  this  country  has  not  been  long  known  to  Europeans, 
and  if  the  shocks  come  at  distant  intervals  it  may 
well  happen  that,  though  the  accidents  occur  in  any 
given  district,  they  have  not  yet  been  observed. 

Beginning  with  the  Isthmus  of  Darien,  and  the  lands 
commonly  known  as  Central  America,  we  find  that  this 
southernmost  part  of  the  continent  is  the  most  earthquake 
ridden  of  all  its  lands.  Ever  since  the  first  Spanish  set 
tlements  were  founded,  the  cities,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  they  were  substantially  built,  have  frequently 
been  ravaged  by  these  convulsions.  There  are  certain 
parts  of  this  district  that  are  exceedingly  subject  to 
shocks  of  a  severe  kind,  while  other  portions  have  been 
relatively  free  from  them.  Thus  the  old  city  of  Guate 
mala,  in  the  central  part  of  the  peninsula  district,  was 
abandoned  on  account  of  the  frequent  and  disastrous 
shocks  to  which  it  was  subjected,  and  a  new  city  of  the 
same  name  was  founded  on  a  site  about  thirty  miles  to 
the  eastward  of  the  old  location,  where,  though  not  safe 
from  earthquakes,  there  have  been  less  frequent  and 
serious  troubles  from  them. 

As  we  go  northward  into  Mexico,  the  disturbances  of 
the  earth  become  less  menacing  to  life  and  property.  On 
the  eastern  side  of  the  widening  land  the  shocks  grow 
rapidly  less  important  as  we  approach  the  Rio  Grande, 
but  on  the  west  they  continue  to  be  frequent  and  of 
moderate  strength  until  we  pass  north  of  San  Francisco, 
in  which  city  a  number  of  considerable  movements  have 
been  observed  since  the  country  was  first  settled  by  civi- 


26O  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

lized  man.  In  the  whole  of  the  eastern  half  of  the  Cor- 
dilleran  district,  at  least  as  far  north  as  the  region  near 
the  line  between  the  United  States  and  Canada,  the 
earth  is  subjected  to  occasional  tremors,  but  they  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  of  much  violence.  North  of 
the  southern  boundary  of  Canada  the  Cordilleran  dis 
trict  appears  to  be  exempt  from  tremblings  of  a  notable 
sort. 

The  Mississippi  Valley  in  its  central  part  appears  to 
be  liable  to  occasional  shocks  of  great  severity,  of  which 
as  yet  but  one  has  come  into  the  experience  of  the  white 
people.  In  November,  1811,  the  region  between  the 
junction  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  rivers,  and 
the  northern  part  of  Louisiana,  experienced  a  succession 
of  shakings  of  such  violence  that  the  forest  trees  were 
beaten  against  each  other  and  the  strongly  built  log 
houses  of  the  pioneers  were  shaken  into  ruins.  Exten 
sive  areas  of  the  alluvial  lands  sunk,  and  into  these 
depressions  the  Mississippi  River  poured  in  such  volume 
that  for  a  time  its  waters  not  only  ceased  to  flow  toward 
the  sea,  but  actually  ran  up  stream.  The  shocks,  which 
began  in  1811,  continued  with  diminishing  energy,  but 
with  great  frequency,  until  1813,  when  the  region  again 
came  to  rest. 

A  portion  of  the  New  England  States  and  Canada  has 
repeatedly  been  visited  by  earthquakes  of  considerable 
violence.  The  most  serious  effects  of  these  shocks 
were  observed  in  Eastern  Massachusetts  when,  in  1685, 
1727,  and  1755,  noteworthy  shakings  occurred.  The 
shock  of  1755  was  one  of  the  most  violent  which  has 
been  observed  in  the  United  States ;  it  was  not  destruc 
tive  to  life  only  for  the  reason  that  the  people  mostly 
dwelt  in  timber  houses,  which  are  by  far  the  best  struc- 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  26l 

tures  to  resist  such  catastrophes.  The  earthquake  of 
1727  affected  only  a  small  district  in  Eastern  New  Eng 
land,  principally  the  country  immediately  about  the 
mouth  of  the  Merrimac :  in  this  disturbance  the  shocks 
continued  for  about  seven  years,  and  though  not  severe 
were  accompanied  by  very  loud  roaring  and  rumbling 
noises  proceeding  from  the  under  earth. 

The  last  noteworthy  earthquake  district  on  the  con 
tinent  of  North  America  is  that  of  the  region  about 
Charleston,  South  Carolina.  This  part  of  the  country 
had  experienced  several  shakings  of  no  great  severity 
in  the  course  of  the  two  centuries  which  had  elapsed 
since  the  settlement  by  Europeans;  but  in  1882  a  much 
more  serious  disturbance  took  place,  which  injured  a 
great  many  buildings  and  killed  many  people.  The 
movement  of  the  earth  was  not  indeed  of  great  energy, 
but  the  masonry  of  that  district  is  made  with  very  poor 
mortar,  and  the  buildings  otherwise  not  well  suited  to 
withstand  earthquakes.  Hence  the  shaking  was  disas 
trous  in  its  consequences.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that 
in  the  district  ravaged  by  the  Charleston  earthquakes, 
the  buildings  which  were  built  under  the  supervision  of 
the  United  States  engineers  escaped  damage. 

Although  little  is  known  concerning  the  causes  of  the 
earthquake  shocks,  it  is  likely  that  they  are  in  many,  if 
not  in  most  cases,  due  to  the  disturbances  of  the  earth's 
crust  which  take  place  in  the  formation  of  mountains ; 
the  bending,  folding,  and  breaking  movements  which  we 
see  have  taken  place  in  the  process  of  mountain-building. 
While  the  greater  part  of  these  dislocations  take  place 
in  a  very  slow  manner,  they  now  and  then  occur  with 
enough  suddenness  to  cause  a  sharp  jar.  It  is  perhaps 
because  the  mountains  of  North  America  are  generally 


262  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

of  relatively  ancient  construction,  and  in  most  parts  of 
the  continent  have  probably  ceased  growing,  that  this 
land  is  as  a  whole  tolerably  exempt  from  disastrous  move 
ments  of  the  earth.  This  exemption  is  not  only  proved 
by  the  experience  of  the  people,  which  indeed  does  not 
extend  for  any  great  period  into  the  past,  but  by  certain 
geological  monuments  which  bear  witness  to  the  fact 
that  for  long  ages  extensive  areas  of  the  land  have  been 
exempt  from  any  great  amount  of  trembling.  These  wit 
nesses  consist  of  numbers  of  tall,  chimney-like,  pinnacled 
rocks,  such  as  are  often  found  standing  near  the  borders 
of  streams,  where  they  have  been  left  in  the  process  of 
erosion.  These  natural  towers  would  have  been  over 
thrown  by  a  considerable  earthquake,  and  as  we  can  by 
geological  evidence  often  prove  that  they  have  stood  in 
their  present  shape  for  thousands  of  years,  they  afford 
excellent  evidence  of  the  stability  of  the  earth  in  the 
districts  where  we  find  them.  By  means  of  these  and 
other  tests,  we  may,  notwithstanding  the  brief  period  of 
written  history  in  this  continent,  conclude  that  the 
greater  part  of  its  surface  is  fairly  secure  from  violent 
shakings,  and  that  on  the  whole  the  continent  is  rather 
more  exempt  from  these  movements  than  the  lands  of 
the  Old  World. 

THE    NATURAL    CONDITIONS    OF     NORTH    AMERICA    WHICH 
AFFECTED    ITS    SETTLEMENT    BY    EUROPEANS. 

As  the  importance  of  North  America  to  man  has  to 
a  great  extent  depended  upon  the  circumstances  of  its 
settlement  by  European  colonists,  we  will  now  consider 
the  conditions  which  determined  the  occupation  of  the 
continent  by  settlers  from  the  various  states  of  the  Old 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  263 

World,  and  the  way  in  which  the  various  states  of  North 
ern  Europe  came  to  have  a  share  in  this  western  land. 

The  continent  of  North  America  was  first  known  to 
the  people  of  Scandinavia  about  five  hundred  years 
before  its  discovery  by  Columbus  ;  the  Northmen  nat 
urally  found  their  way  to  it  through  their  previous  set 
tlement  in  Iceland,  made  in  the  ninth  century  of  our 
era.  Thence,  in  about  a  hundred  years,  they  journeyed 
westward  to  Greenland,  and  as  early  as  the  year  1000  at 
least,  one  of  those  hardy  navigators,  Leif,  a  son  of  Eric 
the  Red,  who  was  probably  the  first  to  see  Greenland, 
sailed  to  the  southward  along  the  shore  of  the  continent 
to  somewhere  south  of  Nova  Scotia.  As  the  North 
men  were  not  to  any  extent  a  commercial  people,  and 
as  in  those  centuries  they  were  living  apart  from  the 
rest  of  Europe,  their  voyages  remained  unknown  to 
the  other  and  most  civilized  folk  of  that  part  of  the 
world.  When,  nearly  five  hundred  years  later,  Colum 
bus  discovered  the  New  World,  the  people  of  Western 
Europe  were  interested  in  the  results  of  his  explorations 
in  a  way  that  it  was  impossible  for  the  Northmen  to  be 
at  the  time  when  Eric  and  Leif  made  their  journeys. 

The  Spaniards,  French,  Dutch,  and  English  were  at 
this  time  keenly  interested  in  a  trade  with  the  southern 
part  of  Asia.  In  this  age  the  only  path  for  this  com 
merce  was  through  the  countries  in  the  eastern  part  of 
the  Mediterranean,  which  were  held  by  the  Mussulmans, 
with  whom  the  Christian  world  was  in  a  state  of  chronic 
warfare.  Moreover,  the  Catholic  portion  of  Europe  was 
at  this  time  affected  by  an  intense  desire  to  diffuse 
Christianity  among  the  heathen,  and  their  people  con 
tained  many  ardent  spirits  who  were  ready  to  give 
their  lives  and  fortunes  to  this  object.  Still  further, 


264  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

in  these  states  a  patriotic  spirit  led  to  the  desire  to 
extend  their  domains  far  and  wide  over  the  earth. 

The  result  of  these  conditions  in  the  cultivated  parts 
of  Europe,  was  that  the  discovery  of  America  by  the 
expedition  of  Columbus,  unlike  that  by  the  early  Scan 
dinavians,  excited  the  liveliest  enthusiasm.  The  Span 
iards  and  French,  the  Dutch  and  English,  hastened  to 
plant  colonies  in  the  new-found  lands.  The  difficulties 
which  beset  these  efforts  are  hardly  conceivable  in  the 
present  state  of  the  world.  Of  course  nothing  was 
known  of  the  nature  of  the  country  which  the  enter 
prising  states  sought  to  win.  Even  the  currents  of 
the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  the  character  of  the  shores 
which  were  to  be  approached,  were  yet  to  be  made  out. 
Therefore  it  was  in  a  blundering  way  that  the  first 
settlements  were  made.  We  can  perceive  that  the 
physical  conditions  of  these  lands,  and  those  of  the  sea 
which  had  to  be  crossed  to  approach  them,  greatly  af 
fected  the  history  of  the  European  settlements  in  the 
New  World,  both  in  their  founding  and  in  their  subse 
quent  development. 

The  Spaniards  being  the  discoverers  of  America,  and 
in  that  day  the  most  maritime  people,  naturally  had  the 
first  chance  in  the  struggle  for  the  possession  of  the  New 
World.  Following  the  path  taken  by  Columbus,  they  soon 
secured  control  of  the  Mediterranean  district  of  America, 
the  region  bordering  on  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  The  path  to  these  possessions  was  the  easi 
est  and  safest  route  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The 
trade-winds,  those  steadfast  air-currents  of  the  regions 
near  the  tropics,  make  voyages  in  the  tolerably  direct 
route  from  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  West  Indies 
the  safest  possible  sailing.  The  Caribbean  Sea  and  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  265 

Mexican  Gulf  are,  except  in  the  hurricane  season,  very 
secure  waters  for  ships.  The  climate  of  all  these  parts 
of  North  and  South  America  which  first  came  under 
the  control  of  Spain  is  essentially  like  that  of  the  mother 
country.  The  natives  of  this  region  were  mostly  rather 
inoffensive  Indians,  who  tilled  the  soil  and  were  more 
easily  subjected  than  the  hunting  tribes  of  the  more 
northern  lands  of  the  continent.  They  were  soon  reduced 
to  the  state  of  slavery,  and  were  of  some  service  to  the 
conquerors  in  tilling  the  soil  and  in  other  forms  of  labor. 

The  Spaniards,  like  all  the  other  adventurers  who 
thronged  to  the  New  World,  were  very  intent  on  finding 
profitable  mines  of  gold  and  silver.  They  were  in  this 
regard  more  fortunate  in  their  share  of  the  new-found 
continents  than  the  settlers  from  the  other  states  of 
.  Europe ;  for  they  quickly  discovered  very  extensive  depos 
its  of  silver  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  and  also  some  which 
yielded  gold.  During  all  the  subsequent  centuries  until 
the  present,  the  colonists  of  the  other  nations  won  none 
of  the  precious  metals  from  North  America,  except  what 
they  captured  from  the  Spanish  ships. 

Although  the  Spanish  colonies  of  the  West  Indian 
islands,  Mexico,  and  the  peninsula  district  of  Central 
America  were  all  in  a  region  of  great  fertility,  and  were 
provided  with  labor  from  the  enslaved  aborigines  as  well 
as  from  the  negroes  brought  from  Africa,  they  were 
only  moderately  successful ;  they  have  contributed  noth 
ing  to  the  general  culture  of  the  world  and  relatively 
little  to  its  commerce.  The  reasons  for  this  relative 
failure  of  the  Spanish  settlements  are  probably  as  fol 
lows  :  In  the  first  place,  the  climate  of  the  Caribbean 
district  of  America  is  tropical,  and  thus  not  favorable  to 
much  vigorous  labor  ;  in  the  second  place,  these  regions 


266  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

remained  until  this  century  entirely  subservient  to  the 
mother  country.  They  were  heavily  taxed  to  yield  rev 
enue  to  the  Spanish  crown,  and  had  no  semblance  of 
freedom ;  lastly,  the  quality  of  the  people  was  greatly 
damaged  by  a  general  intermarriage  of  the  conquerors 
with  the  natives,  so  that  few  Spanish  colonies  ever  had 
a  pure  European  population  :  they  were  composed  of 
half-breeds,  or  of  a  mixture  of  white,  Indian,  and  negro 
blood. 

About  one  hundred  years  after  Spain  began  to  plant 
her  colonies  in  the  southern  portion  of^  the  continent, 
when  her  great  strength  at  sea  made  it  impossible  for 
any  of  the  other  pioneers  of  Europe  to  dispute  this  part 
of  the  New  World  with  her,  England,  France,  and  Hol 
land  began  actively  to  seek  a  share  in  the  lottery  of  the 
New  World.  For  many  years  before  these  states  under 
took  to  plant  colonies  in  North  America,  the  enterpris 
ing  sailors  of  Northern  France  had  resorted  to  the  coast 
of  Newfoundland  for  the  excellent  fisheries  which  that 
region  then,  as  now,  afforded.  These  fishing  grounds 
of  the  Banks  determined  that  in  the  further  sharing  of 
the  New  World,  the  French  should  come  into  possession 
of  the  most  important  gateway  to  the  central  part  of 
North  America  —  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Fol 
lowing  the  path  of  the  adventurous  pilots,  the  fishermen 
of  their  country,  the  French  pioneers  settled  on  the 
neighboring  shores  of  the  mainland,  and  took  possession 
of  the  great  Laurentian  valley ;  following  up  this  noble 
stream,  they  found  their  way  into  the  broad,  central 
trough  of  the  continent,  the  regions  of  the  Great  Lakes 
and  the  Mississippi,  and  for  a  century  or  more  they  dis 
puted  with  the  Spaniards  the  possession  of  the  country 
watered  by  that  stream.  Another  natural  way  into  the 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  267 

interior  of  the  continent,  that  by  way  of  the  mouth  of 
the  greatest  river  of  the  continent,  was  closed  to  other 
European  states  by  the  fact  that  Spain  held  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  debarred  the  ships  of  all  other  nations  from 
approaching  its  shores. 

The  Dutch,  who  industriously  sought  to  find  a  pas 
sage  across  North  America  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  by 
which  they  hoped  to  gain  access  to  the  East  Indies 
without  having  to  pass  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  found 
their  way  to  the  Hudson  River,  settled  on  the  shores  of 
that  noble  inlet  of  the  sea,  and  thus  secured  the  control 
of  the  natural  passage  by  way  of  the  Mohawk,  through 
which  it  was  easy  to  penetrate  to  the  interior  of  the 
continent.  The  English  were  laggards  in  the  race  for 
the  possession  of  the  New  World.  They  came  several 
years  after  the  French  ;  nearly  all  the  shore  of  the  con 
tinent  which  the  above-named  countries  did  not  claim  or 
possess,  except  New  England,  was  claimed  by  Spain. 
The  Spanish,  indeed,  had  recently  butchered  the 
unhappy  Frenchman  who  had  settled  at  the  mouth  of 
the  St.  John  in  Florida,  and  from  their  vantage  ground 
in  the  Caribbean  district,  seemed  able  to  make  good 
their  title  to  all  the  lands  as  far  north  as  the  Delaware 
River.  The  French  had  settled  on  what  is  now  the 
coast  of  Maine,  and  regarded  the  greater  part  of  New 
England  as  within  their  rightful  domain.  The  first  hold 
ings  of  England  in  North  America  were  thus  limited  to 
the  portions  of  the  Atlantic  coast  which  the  other 
stronger,  or  more  fore-thoughtful,  pioneers  did  not  deem 
worth  seizing. 

All  these  European  colonies  north  of  the  Caribbean 
district,  as  compared  with  the  Spanish  possessions  about 
that  sea,  seemed,  at  the  time  they  were  settled,  most 


268  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

disadvantageously  situated.  In  the  first  place,  they 
were  separated  from  Europe  not  by  a  calm  ocean,  over 
which  the  trade-winds  made  the  passage  safe  and  cer 
tain,  but  by  one  of  the  most  turbulent  portions  of  the 
earth's  great  waters.  The  difficulties  which  came  from 
the  need  of  crossing  this  stormy  ocean  were  of  a  serious 
nature,  due  to  the  small  size  and  poor  construction  of 
the  ancient  ships,  as  well  as  to  the  diseases  which  came 
from  the  crowding  of  many  people  in  the  confined  room 
of  their  holds.  Ship  fever,  scurvy,  and  famine  often 
ravaged  the  crews  and  the  passengers  when  the  baffling 
winds  and  strong  currents  prolonged  the  voyages.  It 
was  not  uncommon  for  a  ship  or  fleet,  seeking  America 
by  the  northern  way,  after  a  month  of  struggling  with 
the  head-winds  and  currents,  to  be  beaten  back  to  the 
port  whence  the  voyage  was  begun. 

The  ocean  current,  which,  flowing  to  the  westward, 
helped  the  Spanish  colonists  to  their  destination,  flows 
in  the  opposite  direction  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  hinders  ships  passing  from  the  ports  of 
France,  Holland,  and  Great  Britain  to  the  Atlantic  coast 
of  America  north  of  the  Antilles.  Even  with  the  swift 
steamships  of  this  day,  this  eastward  setting  current 
may  make  a  difference  of  a  day  in  the  duration  of 
voyages  to  and  from  New  York  and  Liverpool.  In  the 
olden  time,  when  the  clumsy  ships  rarely  sailed,  even 
with  favoring  winds,  faster  than  six  or  eight  miles  an 
hour,  and  were  almost  helpless  in  head-winds,  the  move 
ment  of  the  waters  was  often  sufficient  to  prolong  the 
voyage  so  that  it  required  two  or  three  months  of  very 
trying  experiences  before  the  sea-farers  won  the  Ameri 
can  shore.  The  slow  growth  of  the  colonies  in  the 
American  continent  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  is 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  269 

doubtless  in  large  measure  to  be  attributed  to  these  dif 
ficulties  of  the  voyage  across  the  North  Atlantic.  The 
journey  became  a  name  of  terror ;  it  was  indeed  as  for 
midable  as  an  expedition  to  the  Arctic  regions  is  at  the 
present  day. 

There  were  other  difficulties  presented  by  the  physi 
cal  conditions  of  the  northern  part  of  the  continent 
itself,  which  caused  the  settlements  of  the  French,  Eng 
lish,  and  Dutch  to  lag  behind  those  of  the  Spanish. 
The  greater  part  of  the  coast  of  North  America  has  a 
trying  winter  climate.  Except  in  the  district  now  occu 
pied  by  the  sea-board  portions  of  the  Carolinas,  Georgia, 
and  Florida,  from  which  colonists  were  long  debarred 
by  fear  of  the  assaults  of  the  Spanish,  the  shore-lands 
are  affected  by  long  and  cold  winters.  The  forests 
afforded  little  in  the  way  of  food,  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  fishes  at  this  season  desert  the  shore.  All  the 
region  was  occupied  by  dense  woods,  and  north  of  New 
York  the  greater  part  of  the  ground  was  beset  with 
bowlders  left  by  the  glacial  period  over  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  It  was  thus  difficult  for  newcomers  to  main 
tain  themselves  on  the  ground  ;  for  a  time  they  had  to 
be  supplied  with  food  by  importations  from  the  mother 
country,  and  these  shipments  were  often  lost  by  storm, 
or  the  ships  which  bore  them  were  driven  back  to  the 
land  whence  they  set  forth.  So  it  came  about  that  some 
settlements  were  broken  up  by  starvation.  The  Spanish 
settlements  escaped  these  trials,  due  to  the  northern  cli 
mate  ;  in  the  realm  they  occupied  there  is  no  winter 
cold.  It  was  almost  always  easy  to  obtain  food  from 
the  waters,  the  forests,  or  from  the  agricultural  Indians 
about  the  Southern  colonies,  and  communication  with 
the  mother  country  was  relatively  easy  and  certain. 


2/0  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

The  character  of  the  Indians  on  the  northern  part  of 
the  Atlantic  coast  served  also  to  hinder  the  settlement 
of  the  country.  These  aborigines  were  much  less  given 
to  agriculture  than  the  native  people  of  Mexico  and 
Central  America.  They  subsisted  mainly  by  hunting 
and  fishing.  They  were  warlike,  and  owing  to  their 
habits,  not  easy  to  subjugate  ;  they  could  not  be  reduced 
to  slavery.  While  the  Spaniards  made  the  natives  ser 
viceable  as  laborers,  the  other  colonists  had  little  profit 
from  them ;  on  the  contrary,  they  soon  found  themselves 
waging  desultory  war  with  the  most  of  the  tribes. 
These  difficulties  with  the  natives  were  worst  in  the 
case  of  the  English  settlements ;  the  colonists  from 
Great  Britain  rarely  entered  into  friendly  relations  with 
the  savages.  Some  attempts  they  indeed  made  to 
Christianize  and  civilize  them  ;  but  these  undertakings 
were  in  the  main  fruitless,  and  the  Indian  soon  came  to 
be  looked  upon  as  a  dangerous  wild  animal  to  be  con 
trolled  with  a  gun.  They  were  driven  back  before  the 
advancing  lines  of  settlement,  embittered  by  ill  treat 
ment,  and  became  a  constant  menace  to  the  life  of  the 
feeble  colonies. 

The  French  of  the  St.  Lawrence  district  generally 
pursued  a  more  humane  course  with  the  native  tribes  of 
the  country.  They  mingled  with  them  on  amicable 
terms,  often  intermarried  with  them,  and  reared  fami 
lies  of  half-breeds,  who  became  semi-civilized  folk,  of  little 
use  to  the  state,  but  serving  to  unite  the  foreign  and 
the  native  people.  The  plans  and  methods  of  the 
French  settlers  led  in  other  ways  to  a  closer  relation 
between  them  and  the  natives.  The  authorities  of  that 
country,  like  the  Spaniards,  appear  to  have  looked  for 
ward  to  creating  great  dependencies  of  the  mother 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2/1 

country  which  should  be  populated  mainly  by  the  Ind 
ians,  under  the  leadership  of  Frenchmen.  This  scheme 
never  had  a  place  in  the  English  plan  ;  they,  on  the 
contrary,  intended  their  settlements  to  be  true  colonies 
or  offshoots  from  the  life  of  the  mother  country.  The 
result  was  that  while  the  Spaniards  and  French  gener 
ally  adopted  the  Indians  into  their  new  states,  the  colo 
nists  from  Britain  rapidly  swept  them  away,  or  isolated 
them  in  small  communities  where  they  could  be  left  to 
their  own  devices.  The  result  was  that  the  English 
colonies,  though  they  extended  slowly,  were  always  com 
posed  of  a  far  abler  population  than  those  of  France  or 
Spain,  for  they  were  essentially  like  the  country  whence 
they  came.  In  five  or  six  generations  they  became 
strong  enough  to  dispossess  the  Spaniards  and  French 
.from  all  the  parts  of  the  continent  which  they  cared  to 
appropriate. 

A  part  of  the  difficulty  which  beset  the  early  colonists 
of  the  northern  portion  of  this  continent,  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  at  the  outset  the  land  of  this  district  produced 
little  which  could  enter  into  the  commerce  of  the  world. 
After  a  generation  the  culture  of  tobacco  in  the  Vir 
ginia  district  gave  the  colonies  of  that  part  of  the  coast 
a  considerable  export  trade  and  enriched  their  land 
owners  ;  but  north  of  that  part  of  the  shore,  the  only 
important  exportable  articles  were  the  native  products 
of  the  earth  and  waters,  —  timbers,  furs,  and  fish.  All 
these  articles  early  became  valuable  to  the  settlers,  and 
their  development  quickly  and  permanently  affected 
their  manner  of  living  and  the  nature  of  their  societies. 

The  fur  trade,  which  had  no  place  in  the  Spanish  set 
tlements  for  the  evident  reason  that  in  the  warm  cli 
mates  wild  animals  are  not  covered  with  close-set  hair, 


2/2  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

was  the  first  and  long  remained  the  most  important 
basis  of  commerce  between  the  northern  portion  of  the 
New  World  and  the  Old.  Owing  to  its  cold  winter  cli 
mate  many  of  the  animals  of  this  country  afforded  ex 
cellent  pelts.  The  black  bear,  beaver,  wild-cats,  foxes, 
mink,  sable,  buffalo,  and  several  other  animals  whose 
skins  were  of  value,  abounded  in  the  forests  and  prairies. 
These  creatures  were  generally  taken  by  the  Indians, 
who  were  good  hunters  and  had  some  skill  in  the  furrier's 
art.  As  soon  as  they  were  provided  by  the  whites  with 
firearms  and  steel  traps,  they  gathered  great  quantities 
of  these  furs,  and  bartered  with  the  whites  for  the 
products  of  civilization.  In  this  incidental  way  only  did 
the  colonists  of  this  part  of  the  land  find  the  Indians  of 
profit  to  them.  For  a  time  the  gain  they  made  from  this 
commerce  was  of  a  great  advantage  to  the  whites ;  it 
enabled  them,  indeed,  to  meet  the  expenses  of  their 
pioneering  life,  which  otherwise  would  have  been  so  un 
profitable  that  it  is  doubtful  if  the  early  settlers  could 
have  maintained  their  hold  in  the  country.  Incidentally 
this  fur  trade  had  another  important  influence  on  the 
European  colonies  :  it  led  to  the  development  of  an  en 
terprising  body  of  frontiersmen,  who  pushed  into  the 
interior  of  the  continent,  exchanging  their  wares  for  the 
hides  the  Indians  had  to  sell.  These  people  were  a  means 
whereby  friendly  "relations  between  the  newcomers  and 
the  aborigines  were  in  part  maintained  ;  moreover,  these 
traders  brought  information  concerning  lands  which 
would  probably  long  have  remained  unknown  had  it  not 
been  for  this  profitable  commerce  in  furs. 

The  effect  of  this  trade  in  skins  was  as  disadvanta 
geous  to  the  Indians  as  it  was  profitable  to  the  whites. 
It  brought  them  alcoholic  drinks,  which  seem  to  be  even 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  273 

more  damaging  to  savages  than  to  civilized  people ;  it 
was  the  means  by  which  a  variety  of  European  diseases, 
such  as  smallpox,  which  can  readily  be  conveyed  in 
clothing,  were  disseminated  through  the  wilderness 
people.  In  general  it  brought  the  evils  of  civilization 
to  a  people  who  were  not  by  nature  fitted  to  avail  them 
selves  of  the  good  side  of  culture.-  Even  guns,  powder, 
traps,  and  fish-hooks,  although  they  made  the  pursuit 
of  wild  animals  easier,  turned  these  wild  men  away  from 
agriculture  to  the  ensavaging  pursuits  of  the  chase,  and 
thus  served  to  degrade  them.  Moreover,  the  possession 
of  modern  arms,  which  the  Indians  acquired  by  bartering 
furs,  made  them  much  more  dangerous  enemies  to  the 
whites  than  when  they  were  armed  with  flint-tipped 
arrows  and  stone  hatchets. 

The  whole  of  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America 
originally  bore  luxuriant  forests,  and  the  timber  of  these 
woods  was,  next  after  the  furs,  the  principal  element  in 
the  early  commerce  between  the  New  World  and  the 
Old.  The  more  cultivated  parts  of  Europe  had  long 
been  deprived  of  the  trees  fit  for  ship-building  and  for 
other  large  constructions.  As  there  were  no  railways, 
and  but  few  canals  by  which  the  products  of  the  remoter 
forests  could  be  brought  to  the  great  Atlantic  ports  of 
that  country,  much  of  the  supply  came  from  America, 
principally  from  the  region  north  of  Cape  Hatteras. 
For  many  years  there  was  also  an  export  of  the  bark 
and  roots  of  the  sassafras,  a  tree  which  affords  an  aro 
matic  substance  which  at  that  time  was  supposed  to 
have  a  medicinal  virtue.  The  roots  of  a  plant  known 
as  the  ginseng  then,  as  now,  commanded  a  high  price ; 
it  was  once  plentiful  along  the  central  parts  of  the 
Atlantic  coast,  but  it  has  been  nearly  extirpated  by  the 


274  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

continued  search  which  has  been  made  for  it.  These 
plant  products  were  of  importance  in  the  development 
of  the  colonies,  for  they  enabled  the  people  to  secure 
the  means  necessary  to  pay  the  great  costs  required  in 
the  settlement  of  the  wilderness  country,  where  houses, 
roads,  bridges,  and  the  thousand  other  things  necessary 
for  man's  use  have  to  be  procured  anew,  when  men 
inherit  nothing  but  their  strength  and  energy  from  the 
generations  which  have  gone  before. 

The  sea-fisheries  of  the  region  north  of  New  York  were 
early  turned  to  use,  and  a  considerable  export  trade 
came  from  them.  Unlike  the  fur  trade  and  the  timber 
industry,  this  occupation  was  carried  on  in  competi 
tion  with  the  fishermen  of  Europe,  who  resorted  to  our 
shores  and  returned  with  their  cargoes  at  the  end  of 
each  season.  Still  the  employment  was  pursued  with 
profit,  and  in  New  England  as  well  as  in  the  region 
about  the  St.  Lawrence  the  people  to  this  day  follow  the 
occupation  of  their  ancestors  who  settled  on  this  shore. 
It  was  the  good  fortune  of  the  European  settlers  that 
they  found  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  coast  rich  in  a 
number  of  species  of  fish,  which  were  not  only  well 
suited  to  their  own  immediate  use,  but  also  fitted  for 
preservation  by  drying  and  salting,  so  that  they  could  be 
carried  to  distant  lands.  Among  these,  the  cod  holds 
the  foremost  place.  This  fish  finds  the  stormy  and 
rocky  parts  of  the  sea-shore  particularly  well  suited  to  its 
needs,  and  so  it  abounds  in  the  region  off  the  iron  bound 
coasts  of  New  England  and  the  more  northern  parts  of 
the  Atlantic  shore ;  consequently  the  profit  it  has  given 
to  the  people  is  limited  to  this  part  of  the  coast.  The 
schooling  'fishes,  particularly  the  mackerel  and  herring, 
have  also  led  the  seamen  of  New  England  and  the  St. 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA.  2/5 

Lawrence  district  to  considerable  voyages,  just  as  they 
tempted  the  people  of  Northern  Europe  to  visit  this 
part  of  the  continent  even  before  the  first  colonies  were 
founded. 

Certain  species  of  fish,  the  alewives,  the  shad,  and  the 
salmon,  which  have  the  habit  of  laying  their  eggs  in  the 
rivers  and  in  the  lakes  from  which  they  flow,  were  in 
the  primitive  time  accustomed  to  resort  to  the  shores  of 
the  Atlantic  coast  in  great  numbers,  and  were  of  great 
value  to  the  early  settlers,  for  they  provided  at  certain 
seasons  quantities  of  easily  captured  food  which  could 
be  readily  preserved  by  drying,  salting,  or  smoking  for 
use  in  seasons  of  famine.  Unlike  the  game  of  the  forest, 
the  capture  of  these  creatures  from  the  sea  did  not 
require  the  pioneers  to  venture  into  the  wilderness  where 
they  might  encounter  their  savage  foes. 

Another  important  condition  of  the  settlements  in 
North  America  was  brought  about  by  the  geographic 
relations  of  this  continent  to  Africa.  We  have  already 
noticed  the  fact  that  the  Indians  of  North  America  were 
generally  of  an  indomesticable  nature.  The  Spaniards, 
it  is  true,  enslaved  a  large  part  of  the  natives  of  the 
West  Indies,  Mexico,  and  Central  America,  but  these 
people,  though  easily  subjugated,  were  of  weak  body  and 
did  not  prove  of  much  service  as  workmen.  North  of 
Mexico  the  Indian  proved  essentially  useless  for  all  the 
purposes  of  civilization.  They  would  fish  and  hunt,  they 
served  as  gatherers  of  furs  and  deer-skins,  but  they  were 
incapable  of  steadfast  hard  labor.  If  subjected  to  it  they 
soon  died.  The  great  need  of  the  new  settlements  was 
to  secure,  on  any  terms,  an  abundance  of  cheap  labor 
for  the  difficult  tasks  which  were  involved  in  the  reduc 
tion  of  a  stubborn  wilderness  to  the  use  of  civilized  man. 


2/6  THE    COMMERCIAL    CONDITION 

In  a  small  way,  this  need  was  met  by  sending  from  the 
Old  World  numbers  of  paupers  and  criminals  who  had 
been  convicted  of  unimportant  offences  against  the  law, 
who  were  sold  into  a  temporary  slavery  to  pay  the  cost 
of  their  transportation.  Even  poor  people  who  desired 
to  emigrate  to  America  sometimes  paid  for  their  voyage 
by  such  bondage.  Although  this  supply  of  labor  was 
for  a  time  important,  and  the  servitude  of  whites  was 
not  very  revolting  to  the  spirit  of  that  time,  it  was  not 
sufficient  for  the  ever-growing  needs  of  strong  hands. 
There  had  for  ages  been  a  trade  in  slaves  between  the 
interior  of  Africa  and  the  Mediterranean  district.  But 
the  recently  acquired  knowledge  of  the  populous  districts 
of  the  Guinea  coast  made  it  easy  for  traders  to  purchase 
in  that  country,  at  a  very  cheap  price,  paid  in  goods  of 
European  manufacture,  any  number  of  negro  slaves. 
These  captives  were  secured  by  the  natives  in  the  end 
less  wars  which  then  as  now  prevailed  among  the  Afri 
can  tribes,  or  were  sold  by  their  own  petty  kings  much 
as  soldiers  were  bartered  away  by  the  sovereigns  of 
Europe  during  the  last  century. 

This  cheap  captive  labor  from  Africa  exactly  met  the 
immediate  needs  of  the  European  colonies  in  the  New 
World.  Unlike  the  American  Indian,  the  negro  is  very 
able-bodied,  patient  in  captivity,  and  can  labor  as  endur- 
ingly  as  the  white  men.  From  their  own  country  they 
could  be  conveyed  across  the  calm,  tropical  seas,  packed 
so  closely  that  a  ship  of  five  hundred  tons  burden  could 
bring  a  cargo  of  near  a  thousand  men.  They  could, 
therefore,  with  great  profit  to  the  slave  merchants,  be 
sold  at  about  the  price  of  a  good  horse.  Engaged  in 
tobacco  planting  and  sundry  other  arts,  a  well-chosen 
slave  would  repay  his  cost  in  two  or  three  years  of 


OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

service.  For  a  time  this  unhappy  commerce  proved  of 
great  advantage  to  the  colonists  of  the  New  World,  for  it 
supplied  them  with  the  laborers  which  were  needed  for 
their  pioneering  work.  The  rapid  commercial  and  indus 
trial  success  of  the  settlements  was  in  a  great  measure 
due  to  this  extensive  and  forced  migration  of  Africans  to 
the  New  World.  It  is  true  that  the  momentary  gain 
was  dearly  bought  by  the  troubles  which  afterwards 
came  in  the  conflict  for  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  but 
the  immediate  profit  was  great ;  it  is  indeed  difficult  to 
see  how  European  colonies  could  have  grown  with  any 
thing  like  the  rapidity  into  which  they  developed  in  the 
eighteenth  century  but  for  the  importation  of  negro 
slaves. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  in  this  brief  account  of  the 
influence  of  the  geography  of  North  America  on  its  set 
tlement  by  Europeans,  to  note  some  of  the  indirect 
effects  arising  from  the  peculiar  shape  of  the  land  about 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  It  was  the  purpose  of  Columbus  to 
find  a  way  to  the  East  Indies  and  China ;  that  illustrious 
explorer  indeed  died  with  the  full  conviction  that  he  had 
found  a  land  near  to  those  parts  of  the  Orient :  unhap 
pily  for  his  anticipation  it  was  found  that  the  country 
he  had  discovered  was  not  only  far  from  Cathay,  but 
owing  to  the  barrier  of  the  Isthmus  of  Darien,  quite  as 
remote  from  the  Indies  as  are  the  ports  of  Spain.  The 
Isthmus  of  Darien  is  so  low  that  if  the  land  should  sink 
by  the  amount  of  three  hundred  feet  there  would  be  a 
good  ship  channel  from  the  Atlantic  waters  to  those  of 
the  Pacific.  This  slender  barrier  has  been  of  incalcu 
lable  influence  in  the  history  of  civilized  America.  If 
it  had  been  breached  by  the  sea  America  would  have 
been  in  the  great  highway  of  the  world's  commerce, 


'278       COMMERCIAL    CONDITION  OF    NORTH    AMERICA. 

between  the  fertile  and  populous  districts  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Asia  and  the  states  of  Europe,  and  not  as 
it  is  at  present,  the  one  obstacle  between  the  Pacific  and 
Atlantic  divisions  of  the  world.  The  existence  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien,  and  the  peculiar  arrangement  of  the 
islands  of  the  Caribbean,  together  with  the  peninsula  of 
Florida,  made  the  seas  about  the  southern  part  of  North 
America  a  natural  marine  fortress,  and  enabled  the  Span 
ish  long  to  hold  this  field  of  the  ocean  against  the  other 
maritime  nations  of  Europe.  It  was  only  when  the 
power  of  Spain  had  sunk,  and  that  of  Holland,  France, 
and  Great  Britaip  had  increased,  that  the  firm  control  of 
the  Spaniards  over  the  region  about  the  Caribbean  Sea 
and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  was  shaken. 

This  brief  sketch  of  the  effects  of  the  physical  con 
ditions  of  North  America  on  the  progress  of  European 
settlements  on  its  shores,  may  serve  to  show  us  how  the 
geographic  conditions  of  the  country  determine  not  only 
the  internal  conditions  of  the  people  who  develop  within 
its  territory,  but  also  the  circumstances  of  its  relations 
to  other  parts  of  the  earth. 


INDEX. 


Aborigines  of  North  America,  origin  of 153 

Adirondack  district,  mineral  resources  of 226 

Agricultural  advantages  of  North  America 193,  242 

"  resources  of  Cordilleran  region 172 

"  "         "  eastern  section  of  North  America 177 

Agriculture  of  Atlantic  coast  region 1 79 

Alaska,  effect  of  Japan  current  on  climate 125,  128 

Aleutian  Archipelago,  nature  of 87 

Altitude,  effect  on  conditions  of  life 3 

Alluvial  soils,  formation  of 186 

America,  causes  determining  discovery  of 263 

Animals  of  North  America 196,  203 

Appalachian  district , .  214,  215 

"  "        building  materials  of 224 

"  "        coal  in 215 

"  "        river  systems 97 

"  mountains,  comparison  with  Cordilleras 94,  98 

"  "          component  ranges 95,  96 

"  "          description  of 93 

"  "          erosion 96 

"  "          process  of  building 96 

"  "          topography 97 

Archaen  era  in  North  America 26 

Artesian  wells,  principle  of 257 

Aryan  race,  characteristics 167 

Atlantic  coast  region 1 79 

"  "      formation  of  bays  on 86 

"        Ocean,  early  difficulties  of  traversing 268 

"  "         "      routes  over 264 

Bald  cypress,  uses  of 1 18 

Batrachians 37 

279 


28O  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Bays  of  Atlantic  coast 86,  87 

Birds  of  North  America 201 

Bison,  distribution  of 201 

Blue-grass  district,  origin  of  fertility , 8 

Cambrian  period  in  North  America „ 15,  28 

Cafions 1 38,  1 39,  140 

Cape  Cod,  influence  on  conditions  of  marine  life 12,  16 

Carboniferous  period,  climate  of 44 

"  "        in  North  America 34,  46 

«  "        life  of 47 

"         oscillations  of  level  of  land  in .40,  46 

Caverns 141-145 

Central  district  of  North  America,  fertility  of „ 189 

Civil  War,  disadvantages  of  the  South  in 244 

Clams,  fresh  water „ 197,  198 

Climate,  divisions  of  areas  having  differences  in 168 

"        general  features 123 

"        how  affected  by  Polar  current  of  Atlantic  coast 128 

"        of  Alaska,  effect  of  Japan  current  on 125,  128 

"         "  Atlantic  coast  region 1 79 

"         "  Carboniferous  period 44 

"         "  Cordilleran  region 1 72 

"         "  Cretaceous  period 55 

"         "  eastern  section  of  North  America 177 

"  Greenland 80 

"         "  Mississippi  Valley,  range  of 112 

"         "  North  America 123 

"         "       "  "        conditions  affecting 125 

"       "  "        effect  of  Gulf  of  Mexico 125 

"         "       "  "  "      "   ocean  currents 123 

"         "       «  "  "      "    rainfall 180 

"         "       "  "        suitableness  to  man 1 76 

"         "   northern  region  of  North  America 169 

"         "  prairie  region 1 23 

"  St.  Lawrence  Valley 178 

"         "  the  earth  as  affected  by  ocean  currents 19 

"        range  of  in  North  America 168 

Coal,  anthracite  and  bituminous 44 

"      beds,  arrangement  of  strata  in 40 

"      district  of  Pennsylvania ~    218 


INDEX.  28l 

PAGE 

Coal,  formation  of 1 1,  209 

"  "  "  in  Carboniferous  period 38 

"      in  Appalachian  district 215,  219 

"       "  Narragansett  basin 217 

Colonization  of  North  America,  plan  of  various  races  in 270 

Commercial  advantages  of  geographical  position  of  North  America. .    250 

"  "  "  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  Caribbean  Sea 249 

"  conditions  of  North  America 246 

"  development  of  United  States 238 

"  inactivity  of  northern  part  of  North  America 250 

"  products  of  North  America 25 1 

Commerce,  favored  by  shortened  distances  between  points  formerly 

remote 251 

method  of  growth 246 

"  of  early  colonies,  disadvantages  of 271 

"  "   North  America,  advantage  of  water-fronts 248 

internal 247 

Comstock  lode,  mining  in 228,  231 

Continental  areas,  figures  of 18 

"  formation,  principle  of 89 

shelf 148,  149 

Continents,  value  for  uses  of  man 1 74 

Copper,  early  use  of „ 205 

"        of  Cordilleran  district 231 

"        "    Laurentian  district 225 

Coral  reefs,  effect  on  geographical  and  climatal  conditions 152 

"       "  Gulf  Stream 86 

"        "      influence  of  Gulf  Stream  in  formation 151 

"        "      in  geological  times 33,  1 50 

"        "      of  North  America , 1 50 

"        "      "  southeastern  coast,  conditions  of  growth 85 

Cordilleran  mountains 90,  91,  92 

region,  agricultural  resources 171,  172 

"  "        climate 172 

"  "        extent 171 

"        mineral  resources 1 73,  227 

"  "        precious  metals 228 

"        readiness  with  which  explored 232 

"        unfitness  for  occupation  by  man 171 

Cotton,  production 195,  242 

Cretaceous  period 53»  55 


282  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Crinoids  of  Carboniferous  period 35 

"         "  Silurian  period , 30 

Dead  seas 146,  147 

Devonian  black  shales,  formation  of 33 

"         period  in  North  America 32 

Domesticated  animals,  origin 204 

Early  settlement  of  interior  district,  difficulties 234 

"             "           "         "           "         effect  on  subsequent  history 238 

"           "         progress  of 235 

"           "  North  America 264 

Earthquake  of  Charleston,  S.C 261 

"          of  181  i  in  Mississippi  Valley .  „ 260 

Earthquakes,  distribution  ...    „ . .  259 

"             evidence  of  former  exemption  from 262 

"             of  New  England  .  . . .  < 260 

"             probable  cause 261 

Eastern  section  of  North  America,  agricultural  resources 1 77 

"      "             "         extent 176 

"           "         "      "             "         fitness  for  occupation  by  man. .. ..  176 

Elephants  of  glacial  period 72 

England,  share  in  settlement  of  America 267 

Falls  of  Ohio  River,  account  of 137 

Figure  of  land-masses  of  the  earth 18 

Fisheries  of  early  colonies ,  274 

Fish  of  Carboniferous  period 37 

"     "    North  America 200 

Florida,  character  of 179 

"        relation  of  trend  to  axis  continent 89 

Footprints  found  in  strata  of  Triassic  period 47 

Forest  products  of  minor  importance 120 

Forests,  importance  to  early  settlers 113 

"         method  of  clearing  for  tillage  purposes „ 188 

"         of  North  America 112,  113,  115 

"         picturesque  value 135 

"         species  of  trees  composing 1 14 

Fossils  found  in  salt  springs 255 

France,  share  of  settlement  in  America   o 266 


INDEX.  283 

PAGE 

Fuel  deposits,  conditions  affecting  preservation 210 

"     supply  of  North  America,  commercial  advantage  of  position. . . .    252 
Fur  trade  of  colonies,  effects  of 272 

Geographical  aspects  of  the  earth 18 

"            conditions,  dependence  of  men  upon 4 

"  "  effect  on  development  of  life 2,  20 

"                    "              "       "    early  colonists 164 

Geological  changes,  effect  in  determining  present  conditions 5 

"          development  of  North  America. 25 

"          records,  difficulty  of  interpretation 25 

researches,  comparison  with  archaeological 21 

succession  of  life 14,  1 6 

Geologist,  methods  of  research 23 

Ginseng,  uses 1 20 

Glacial  action  during  ice  epoch 66 

"        effects  on  drainage 70,  109 

"      period,  area  experiencing 65 

"            "       effects  on  drainage 109 

"        "    migration  of  species 65 

"       moraines  of 67 

"       soils  formed  in 70 

Glaciers  of  Alaska 126 

"   Greenland „ 1 26 

Gold-bearing  gravels  of  Cordilleran  district 228 

"     mining 229,  230 

"     of  Appalachian  district 223 

Great  Lakes,  conditions  of  drainage 106 

Greenland,  climate ; 80,  8 1 

geography 89 

glaciers   1 26 

probable  insular  nature  of 80 

resources 81 

Gulf  of  Mexico,  effect  on  climate  of  North  America 125 

"    "        "         former  extent 34 

Gulf  Stream,  agency  in  formation  of  Devonian  black  shales 33 

"         "        climatal  influence 19 

"         "        conditions  determining  course  of. 19 

"         "        Course  of. 1 50 

"         "        effect  of  coral  reefs  on 86 

"         "        former  course  of 32 


284  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Gulf  Stream,  influence  in  formation  of  coral  reefs .86,  151 

Guatemala,  abandonment  of  old  city  of 259 

Harbors  of  North  America  247 

Holland,  share  in  settlement  of  North  America 267 

Holly,  uses 119 

Horse,  development  of 58 

Hot  springs,  value  of 253,  254 

Hudson's  Bay,  probable  origin  and  nature  of 81 

Icebergs,  effects 127 

Indian  corn,  conditions  of  growth „ . . .  12 

"  "  production „ 242 

"  summer 129,  130 

Indians,  domestic  arts  of 158 

"  effect  of  civilization  on 272 

"  former  development 156 

"  "  social  condition 157 

"  ignorance  of  ship-building,  effect  on  development 163 

"  influence  of  absence  of  domesticable  animals  on  development  162 

"  "  "  geographical  conditions  on  development. ...  161,  163 

"  means  of  warfare „  164 

"  mental  capacity  and  traits 160 

"  of  central  North  America,  character  of ...  270 

"  "  North  and  South  America,  likeness  of. 156 

Iron  ore,  formation  and  distribution  of 222 

"  "  of  Cordilleran  district 228 

"  "  "  Laurentian  district 225 

Isthmus  of  Darien,  influence  on  history  of  America 277 

Japan  current,  effect  on  climate  of  Alaska 125,  128 

Jurassic  period 49,  5° 

King  crab,  peculiarities  of 199 

Lakes,  picturesque  value  of    135 

Laurentian  district,  mineral  resources 225 

'*          mountains 98,  99,  100 

Life,  advance  in  during  geological  times 14 

"     degradational  changes  in  development  of 63 


INDEX.  285 


Life,  effect  of  various  conditions  on 2,  3,  13,  14 

"     geological  succession 14,  16 

"     in  geological  times,  description  of 14 

"     of  Carboniferous  period 47 

"     "  Cretaceous  period 53.  55 

"      "  Jurassic  period 49 

"      "  North  America,  development  of 28 

"     "  Tertiary  era 56 

"      "  Triassic  period 46 

"     process  of  development 16 

Limestone,  formation  of 141 

Live  oak,  uses  of 117 

Lower  California,  geography  of 88 

Mackenzie  River,  floods  of 103 

Mammalian  remains  found  in  strata  of  Triassic  period 48 

Mammals  of  North  America 201 

"         "  Tertiary  era 56 

Man,  conditions  necessary  for  development  of  mining  life  in 10 

"             "               "             "             "            "  sea-faring  life 9 

"     dependence  on  geographical  conditions 4 

"     first  appearance  in  North  America 73 

"     influence  of  under  earth  on  occupations  of 10 

"     resources  of,  various  stages  in  development 205 

Metalliferous  ores  of  Appalachian  district 224 

Methods  of  geological  research,  comparison  with  those  of  archaeology,  21 

Mexico,  slight  extension  of  settlements  of 240 

Mineral  constituents  of  sea-water,  appropriation  by  organisms 212 

Mineral  fields  of  North  America,  situation .  214 

"       products  of  Cordilleran  district  of  minor  importance 232 

"        resources,  classification  of 208 

"             "            conditions  determining  distribution 208 

"             "           of  Adirondack  district 226 

"            "  Cordilleran  region 173,  227 

"            "  Laurentian  district 225 

"            "  Mississippi  Valley 226 

"            "            "  North  America 205 

"            "            "       "            "       extent  of  knowledge  of 207 

"             "           relative  value 206 

"       springs,  value 253 

Minerals,  varieties  having  economic  value 10 


286  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Mississippi  Sea 32 

"          Valley,  account  of m 

"              "       mineral  resources 226 

"              "       range  of  climate  in 1 1 2 

Mollusks  of  North  America 197 

Morainal  accumulations,  formation  of  islands  by 84 

"                  "               of  glacial  period 67 

Mound-builders 159 

Mountain  building,  in  Triassic  period  46 

"                "         localities  of  present  activity 79 

Mountains  of  North  America 77,  90 

Narragansett  coal  basin 217 

Natural  gas 210,  220,  221 

Nautilus,  pearly,  of  Silurian  period 31 

Nelson  River,  description  of  valley  of 104 

New  England,  earthquakes  of 260 

"           "         peculiar  characteristics  of  valleys 108 

Niagara  Falls,  account  of : 137 

North  America,  aboriginal  peoples  of 153 

"             "         advantage  to  commerce  of  geographical  position 250 

"             "         animals 196 

"             "         climate 1 23 

"             "         comparative  fitness  for  fruit  culture. 196 

"             "         development  of  life  of 28 

"             "         extent 77 

"             "         first  settlement , 233 

"             "         fitness  for  agriculture 193 

"            «         forests 112 

"             "         geological  development „ 25 

"             "         growth 21 

"             "         minerul  resources 205 

"             "         minor  mountain  ranges 100 

"            "            "      valleys 107 

"  "         mountains 77>  9° 

"             "         origin  of  aborigines 153 

"  "         physiographic  aspects = 77,  81 

"             "         population  241 

"            "         range  of  climate 168 

"             "         relative  lack  of  picturesqueness 133 

"            «        scenery ^, 132 


INDEX.  287 

PAGE 

North  America,  soils 183 

"            "        value  to  man 1 74 

"             "         variety  of  sources  of  energy 253 

"  .  "         vegetables  originally  from 193,  204 

Northern  region  of  North  America,  climate 166 

"             "                "              "         resources 1 70 

"             "                "              "         unfitness  for  occupation  by  man ..  171 

Northmen,  discovery  of  America  by 263 

Ocean  currents,  effect  of  continental  grouping  on 19 

"           "         effect  of  distribution  on  climate  of  North  America  ...  128 

"            "         effect  on  climate  of  the  earth 19 

Ohio  River,  account  of  falls 137 

Opossum,  peculiarities  of 202 

Organisms,  principles  determining  the  survival  of 16 

Oysters  of  North  America c 1 99 

Pacific  coast  region,  character  of 180 

"          "         "       origin  of  continental  islands. „ 88 

Palmetto,  uses 117 

Paw-paw,  uses 119 

Peat  bogs „ 41,  42 

"     process  by  which  changed  to  coal 43 

Pennsylvania  coal  district , „ 218 

Persimmon,  uses   119 

Petroleum 210,  219,  220,  221 

Physiographic  features  of  North  America;   comparison  with  those  of 

Europe 124 

Plainland  district,  picturesque  aspect 135 

Polar  current  of  Atlantic  coast,  effect  on  climate 128 

Population  of  North  America,  growth  of 241 

Prairie  lands,  former  destruction  of  timber  by  fire  on 1 16 

"       region,  climate „ 123 

"  "        extent 121 

"  "        settlement 237 

Prairies 121,  122,  189 

Precious  metals  of  Cordilleran  district 228 

Prehistoric  man  on  Pacific  coast 154,  155 

Race  characteristics,  influence  of  natural  conditions  on 167 


288  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Railroads  in  North  America,  facility  of  construction 249 

Rainfall,  conditions  determining  relative   amount  in  North  America 

and  Europe 182 

"         distribution 181,  258 

"         of  North  America,  cause  of  distribution 181 

Rattlesnake,  characteristics  of  . , 200 

Reptiles  of  North  America 200 

River  systems  of  Appalachian  district 97 

Rivers  of  Pacific  Slope no 

Rocky  Mountains,  former  rainfall 190 

"                 "          settlement 238 

"                 "          sterility 190 

St.  Lawrence  Archipelago .- 82,  83 

"           "          Valley,  absence  of  alluvial  plain 107 

"           "               "       character 1 78 

"               "       climate    178 

"           "               "       description 105 

Salt  springs 255,  256 

Sand  beaches  of  Atlantic  coast,  cause 84 

Sassafras,  uses 119 

Scenery,  educative  value 132 

Seasons,  effect  on  conditions  of  life 3 

Sea-water,  composition 212 

Settlement  of  North  America,  conditions  determining 262 

"               "            "         difficulties 269 

"                "             "         stages  of  progress 239 

"           prairie  region,  conditions  determining 237 

"            Rocky  Mountains 238 

Silurian  period,  life 29 

Silver  of  Cordilleran  district 231 

Slavery,  benefits  of 276 

"        conditions  determining  distribution 243 

"                "         leading  to,  in  early  settlement  of  America 275 

"        influence  of  cotton  and  tobacco  production  on. . . . , 243 

"                 "           soil  on  distribution 186 

Slave  trade  in  time  of  early  settlement  of  America 276 

Soil,  alluvial,  formation  of 186 

"     character  determined  by  underlying  rock 7 

*'     composition 7,  183 

"     conditions  determining  fertility.  .f 184 


INDEX.  289 

PAGE 

Soil,  effect  in  determining  conditions  of  life 5 

"     formation = 6 

"     formed  by  glacial  action „ . . . .  185 

"        "                "           :<      difficulty  of  subjugation  . , 188 

"    how  cleared  of  forests 188 

"     influence  of  former  conditions  on 8 

"           "         on  advance  of  civilization 185 

"           "          "  distribution  of  slavery 186 

"     in  situ , 185 

"     nature  and  origin 6 

Soils  of  Glacial  period 70 

"        North  America 183,  184 

"        relative  endurance  of . . . , 187 

Spain,  share  in  settlement  of  America 264 

Spanish  colonies,  success  of '. 265 

Springs,  caused  to  gush  by  pressure  of  gases 257 

"         importance  of 253 

"         of  North  America,  distribution 254 

.    "         value  as  sources  of  domestic  water-supply  . ,.  256 

Stalactite,  formation  of 144 

Stalagmite,  formation  of 144 

Storms,  classification  of 131 

"       of  North  America,  conditions  of  occurrence , 130 

Taxodium,  uses Il8 

Temperature,  effect  in  determining  distribution  of  life 12 

Tertiary  era,  life  of 56 

Timber  trade  of  early  colonies 273 

Tobacco,  production 196 

Tornadoes 131,  132 

Triassic  period,  footprints  of  batrachians  found  in  strata 47 

life  of 46 

"           "        mammalian  remains  found  in  strata 48 

"           "        mountain  building  in * 46 

Trilobites,  disappearance  of 35 

Valley  of  Churchill  River,  character  of 104 

"        Mackenzie  River,  character  of •, 102 

"         Nelson  River,  character  of 104 

"        St  Lawrence,  absence  of  alluvial  plain  in 107 


2QO  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Valleys,  classification  of 102 

"         of  New  England,  characteristics  of » . . . 108 

Vegetable  life,  development  in  Tertiary  time , , .  .     60 

Vegetables  of  North  America 195 

"         originating  in  North  America. 193,  204 

Veins,  formation  of 213 

Vertebrates,  first  appearance  of 24 

Virginian  coal  district 217 

Waterfalls,  conditions  of  occurrence.  ...... ,«,...  = 137 

economic  value • . . . .  , * 1 38 

"  relation  to  geology , 136 

"  scenic  value ,  136 

Water,  dissolving  capacity  of 211 

"       influence  in  formation  of  mineral  accumulations  , 211 

"       power  of  North  America ,  252 

"       system  of  North  America 247 

Yucatan,  relation  of  trend  to  axis  of  continent .......     89 


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